DOVEADM-INSTANCE(1)

✨ DOVEADM-INSTANCE 💅

okay bestie, so this is the manual for doveadm-instance — that's section 1 of the Dovecot manuals, for the record 👑 — and it's literally the little command that keeps track of all your running Dovecot instances. yes, like a group chat roster but for daemons. let's get into it 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] instance list [-c] [name]

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] instance remove name

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

The doveadm instance commands are the vibe-curation tools for the list of Dovecot instances running on the server. In most installations there's just one Dovecot instance — one girl, one server, main character energy — but sometimes it's genuinely useful to have more, like running proxy and backend on the same machine. serving cunt on both fronts, periodt.

Instances get added to the list automatically when Dovecot is started. no manual adding, it just happens ✨ Each instance is uniquely identified by its base_dir setting. You can also give instances names by setting instance_name in each instance's dovecot.conf. Once an instance is named, it's super easy to access — just hand the -i instance_name command line parameter to the Dovecot binaries (like doveadm) and boom, you're in 💅

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💖 GLOBAL OPTIONS 💖

The global doveadm(1) options, bestie — these apply everywhere:

• -D — turns on verbosity and debug messages. it's giving "tell me everything" 🔍
• -O — do not read any config file, just use the defaults. The dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the latest version, but you can override it with -o. raw-dogging the config, bold move 😭
• -k — preserve the entire environment for doveadm, not just the import_environment setting. no scrubbing, no filter.
• -v — turns on verbosity, including a progress counter. little numbers ticking up? 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. this is the ✨named instance✨ shortcut.
• -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. lowkey flexible fr fr.
• -o setting=value — overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. Want to override multiple settings? Just specify -o multiple times, she's not a one--o girlie 💅
• -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. for the API girlies 🧚
  • 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. pretty-printed, iconic.

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• name — the value of an instance's instance_name setting. Each instance can also be uniquely identified by its base_dir setting. so you can call her by her name or her address, either works 🌈

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👑 COMMANDS 👑

🌟 instance list

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] instance list [-c] [name]

This command lists the seen Dovecot instances. the whole roster, front to back 📋

• -c — output the config path instead of instance information. different info, same iconique energy.

🌟 instance remove

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] instance remove name

This command removes the specified instance. bye bestie, you're off the list 💀

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😭 REPORTING BUGS 😭

Found a bug? First of all, no cap, please tell them. 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⟩

don't forget the doveconf -n output, they need it fr fr, it's not optional 🙈

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• doveadm(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💜 this was DOVEADM-INSTANCE(1) from the Dovecot source, version f979264, dated April 2026. go forth and manage your instances, you absolute queen ✨🎀🦋