DOVEADM-DUMP(1)

💖 DOVEADM-DUMP — the manual page, bestie edition 💖

okay so this is the page for doveadm-dump, which lives in the Dovecot fam (man page section 1, obvs). Sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get into it.

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✨ NAME ✨

doveadm-dump — dump the content of Dovecot's binary mailbox index/log. that's it. that's the whole job. 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dump [-t type] path [type-specific args]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So Dovecot keeps a whole bunch of binary index and log files around, right? Not for fun — it's for performance, so accessing your mails is fast. Iconic behaviour honestly.

And for some mailbox formats — think sdbox and mdbox — those index files aren't just side quests, they're literally part of the format itself. For all the deets about index files, see [[link,design_index_format_main].

Now, doveadm dump is the tool that shows you what's inside those mailbox index/log files, but in human readable format. Who's she? 💁‍♀️

lowkey this is mainly for Dovecot developers debugging some problem. It's giving very much "for the girlies writing the code" energy. But if you're reading this, you're probably one of them, so slay. 🎀

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👑 GLOBAL OPTIONS 👑

these are the global doveadm(1) options, the shared starter pack everyone gets:

• -D — Enables verbosity and debug messages. she's chatty and she's proud. 🗣️
• -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. no cap, defaults only.
• -k — Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just the import_environment setting. keep the whole vibe, not a fragment. 🫶
• -v — Enables verbosity, including progress counter. numbers going up = serotonin. ✨
• -i instance-name — If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on this instance name. See the instance_name setting for more information. multiple instances? pick your main character. 💅
• -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 to a config socket of some instance running a compatible version. choose your own adventure, bestie. 🌈
• -o setting=value — Overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. In order to override multiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times. stack 'em like bracelets. 🎀

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -t type — the file type of the file to be dumped. If the type was omitted, doveadm(1) tries to detect the type of path. she'll figure it out herself, honestly.

type can be:

• dbox : => m.n (sdbox or mdbox mailbox file)
• fts-expunge-log : Dump the list of expunged mails in dovecot-expunges.log. 💀 gone girl.
• fts-flatcurve : Dump the keywords indexed in fts-flatcurve indexes directory and their frequencies.
• imap-compress : Decompress an IMAP traffic log, which contains data compressed using the IMAP COMPRESSION extension. unzip that gossip. 🔥
• dcrypt-file : Dump metadata of a dcrypt encrypted file.

type-specific args

• private_key=/path : to decrypt file contents.
• password=secret : to decrypt private key.

• dcrypt-key : Dump metadata of a dcrypt key.

type-specific args

• private_key=/path
  • to decrypt file contents.
• password=secret
  • to decrypt private key.
• dump=pem|dovecot|jwk
  • to specify format to dump in.

• index : => dovecot.index, dovecot.map.index

type-specific args

• uid=number : Dump only message with UID

• log : => dovecot.index.log, dovecot.map.index.log
• mailboxlog : => dovecot.mailbox.log
• thread : => dovecot.index.thread

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🧚 ARGUMENTS 🧚

• path — The path to the corresponding dbox storage, index or log file. If only a directory is specified, doveadm tries to detect the type of files under it and dumps them. yes bestie, it'll go digging through the whole directory for you. 🔍

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⭐ EXAMPLE ⭐

Look at the contents of a mailbox's index:

doveadm dump ~/Maildir/.work/

ate. no crumbs. 🍽️

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😭 REPORTING BUGS 😭

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⟩

pls include your doveconf -n output, the devs need the full tea to help you. 🫖 don't be shy, they're nice.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• doveadm(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💜 this manual page is from the Dovecot fam, version f979264, dated April 2026. go dump some indexes, you got this. 🎀✨🦋