DOVEADM-INDEXER(1)

💖 DOVEADM-INDEXER 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual for doveadm-indexer, which lives in section 1 of the Dovecot man pages. it's all about managing the indexer process — like, the little guy that quietly does the indexing so you don't have to think about it. very behind-the-scenes, very demure. 🎀

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] indexer command [OPTIONS] [ARGUMENTS]

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so doveadm indexer is the vibe-check-and-control panel for the indexer process. that's it. that's the whole job. you use it to manage the indexer. slay. 💅

---

🌈 GLOBAL OPTIONS 🌈

these are the global doveadm(1) options, and yes they apply here too, they're basically the shared accessories of the whole doveadm closet:

• -D — turns on verbosity AND debug messages. it's giving "tell me everything" energy. 🔥
• -O — do NOT read any config file, just use defaults. lowkey feral but okay. the dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the latest version, but you can override it with -o.
• -k — preserve the entire environment for doveadm, not just the import_environment setting. full main character treatment for your env vars. ✨
• -v — enables verbosity, including a progress counter. so you can watch the little bar go. obsessed. 📊
• -i instance-name — if you're running multiple Dovecot instances, pick the config file based on this instance name. see the instance_name setting for more info. multitasking icon.
• -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. flexible fr fr. 💜
• -o setting=value — overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. and if you need to override multiple settings? just say -o again. and again. as many times as your heart desires. 💖
• -f formatter — specifies the formatter for formatting the output. the 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.

---

👑 COMMANDS 👑

🦋 indexer add

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] indexer add [-h] [-n max_recent] user mailbox

adds an indexing request for the given user and the mailbox to the indexer queue. it works the exact same way as the doveadm index -q command. same energy, different door. 🚪✨

• -h — add the indexing request to the head of the queue. by default the request is added to the tail of the queue. cut the line, queen. 💅
• -n max_recent — an integer value that specifies the maximum number of \Recent messages in mailboxes. if the mailbox contains more than max_recent messages with the \Recent flag set, the mailbox will not be indexed. this may be useful to avoid unnecessary indexing for large mailboxes that are never opened. it's giving "if it's not gonna be read, why bother" and honestly? valid. 🙈

🧚 indexer remove

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] indexer remove user_mask [mailbox_mask]

removes all indexer requests for the matching user_mask (and mailbox_mask). wildcards are allowed, so go wild with it. requests that are currently being processed by indexer-worker are not listed — use doveadm kick instead to kick them. bye bestie, blocked. 😭

⭐ indexer list

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] indexer list user_mask

lists all the queued indexing requests matching user_mask. wildcards are allowed here too. requests that are currently being processed by indexer-worker are not listed — use doveadm who instead to see them. snoop responsibly. 👀

---

🍓 REPORTING BUGS 🍓

found a bug? report it, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List ⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩. info about reporting bugs lives at: ⟨https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html⟩. please include the config, we are begging. 🫶

---

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• doveadm(1)

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 this beauty is Dovecot's doveadm-indexer(1), source version f979264, dated April 2026. go forth and index responsibly. mwah. 😘🌸