DOVEADM-DICT(1)

💖 DOVEADM-DICT(1) 💖

okay bestie, this is DOVEADM-DICT(1), a Dovecot manual page, and it's literally all about poking at dictionary entries. no cap, it's giving "niche but powerful" energy. let's get into it 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

doveadm-dict — commands related to dictionary manipulation in user context

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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 <purple>doveadm dict</purple> and <purple>doveadm mail dict</purple> are the two ways in, and both of them let you query and modify dictionary entries. iconic.

The <purple>doveadm mail dict</purple> flavor can be used inside a specific user context. that's highkey useful when, say, a userdb lookup returns user-specific dict settings 👑. Other than that little glow-up, the two commands behave identically. fr fr.

• config-filter-name — the filter name to use when looking up the dict settings. think mail_attribute, quota_clone. you can also use an empty filter name and just specify the dict settings yourself using the -o parameters 💅

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🌈 GLOBAL OPTIONS 🌈

these are the global doveadm(1) options, the ones that apply everywhere:

• -D — enables verbosity and debug messages. turn it on when you want the tea ☕
• -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.
• -i instance-name — if you're using 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 config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. you can also point this to config socket of some instance running compatible version ✨
• -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.
• -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. (yes, "setting setting", that's what it says, i don't make the rules 🙈) 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 (yes, "the a prefix", we're keeping it 💖).

• -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. (that's it, that's the line, it's just vibing there at the end of the section 🌸)

🦋 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 🫶

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

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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⟩

bestie if something's broken, send the doveconf -n output too or they can't help you, that's the whole vibe check 💖

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

doveadm(1)

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and that's the whole page!! f979264, April 2026, DOVEADM-DICT(1) — mwah, go slay some dictionary entries, ily 🎀✨💜