DOVEADM-MAILBOX(1)

NAME 💖

doveadm-mailbox — commands related to handling mailboxes. This is the DOVEADM-MAILBOX(1) page from Dovecot, bestie.

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SYNOPSIS ✨

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] mailbox_cmd [OPTIONS]
[ARGUMENTS]

DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so doveadm mailbox is the vibe for querying and modifying mailboxes. That's it, that's the whole point.

GLOBAL OPTIONS 👑

Global doveadm(1) options, the ones that apply across the board:

• -D — Enables verbosity and debug messages. It's giving main character debugging energy.
• -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 import_environment setting.
• -v — Enables verbosity, including progress counter.
• -i instance-name — If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on this instance name. See instance_name setting for more information.
• -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.

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.
• --no-userdb-lookup — Do not perform userdb lookup. Use the USER environment variable to specify the username.
• -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).

ARGUMENTS 🎀

• mailbox — Is the name of a mailbox, as visible to IMAP clients, except in UTF-8 format. The hierarchy separator between a parent and child mailbox is commonly / or ., but this depends on your selected mailbox storage format and namespace configuration. The mailbox names may also require a namespace prefix.

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✨ COMMANDS ✨

okay bestie, this is the part where we go through every single mailbox subcommand. no skips, no cap. each one gets its own little spotlight, and every flag, argument, warning, and typo stays exactly where it belongs. periodt 💅 it's giving organized, lowkey iconic, and highkey necessary. ngl, the way that this section just keeps going? obsessed. iykyk. fr fr. not me being a whole Unix main character energy vibe check, but here we are 🫶 slay, let's go.

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🎀 mailbox create 🎀

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox create [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-g guid] [-s] mailbox...

This command is used to create one or more mailboxes. The mailbox format of the created mailboxes depends on the mail_driver setting, or the user's mail field, returned by the userdb.

• -g guid — Create the mailbox with the specified GUID.
• -s — When this option was given, the created mailboxes will be also added to the user's subscriptions.

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🔐 mailbox cryptokey 🔐

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox cryptokey export|generate|list|password

This command is used to manage mail crypt plugin cryptographic keys. Please see doveadm-mailbox-cryptokey(1) for more details.

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🗑️ mailbox delete 🗑️

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox delete [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] [-r] [-e] [-Z] mailbox...

This command deletes a mailbox and expunges all the messages it contains. If the mailbox has any children, they won't be deleted, unless -r is given.

• -r — Delete mailboxes recursively
• -s — Unsubscribe deleted mailboxes.
• -e — Require mailboxes to be empty before deleting.
• -Z — Delete the mailbox as efficiently as possible, but the user may not be in fully consistent state afterwards. For example quota may be wrong. This option is mainly useful when deleting the entire user.

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📋 mailbox list 📋

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox list [-7 | -8] [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] [mailbox ...]

To get an overview of existing mailboxes use this command. It's also possible to use wildcards in the mailbox name.

When the -s option is present, only subscribed mailboxes will be listed. Listed subscriptions may also contain mailboxes that are already deleted.

• -7 — Lists the mailboxes with mUTF-7 encoding.
• -8 — Lists the mailboxes with UTF-8 encoding.

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🏷️ mailbox metadata list 🏷️

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox metadata list [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] [-p] mailbox [key-prefix]

• -s — Allows to specify mailbox "", which points to the server metadata instead of mailboxes' matadata. It has no effect if mailbox is anything else than an empty string.
• -p — Prepend prefix.
• mailbox — The target mailbox (mandatory). If -s is specified, the empty string "" can be used to indicate access to server metadata.
• key-prefix — The key prefix to look for. All keys will be listed if not provided.

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🔎 mailbox metadata get 🔎

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox metadata get [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] mailbox key

• -s — Allows to specify mailbox "", which points to the server metadata instead of mailboxes' matadata. It has no effect if mailbox is anything else than an empty string.
• mailbox — The target mailbox (mandatory). If -s is specified, the empty string "" can be used to indicate access to server metadata.
• key — The key to retrieve.

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✍️ mailbox metadata set ✍️

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox metadata set [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] mailbox key value

• -s — Allows to specify mailbox "", which points to the server metadata instead of mailboxes' matadata. It has no effect if mailbox is anything else than an empty string.
• mailbox — The target mailbox (mandatory). If -s is specified, the empty string "" can be used to indicate access to server metadata.
• key — The key to set.
• value — The value to set.

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🧽 mailbox metadata unset 🧽

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox metadata unset [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] mailbox key

• -s — Allows to specify mailbox "", which points to the server metadata instead of mailboxes' matadata. It has no effect if mailbox is anything else than an empty string.
• mailbox — The target mailbox (mandatory). If -s is specified, the empty string "" can be used to indicate access to server metadata.
• key — The key to unset.

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🔄 mailbox mutf7 🔄

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox mutf7 [-7 | -8] name...

The mailbox mutf7 command may be used to convert the international mailbox name into a modified version of the UTF-7 encoding and vice versa. See RFC 3501 (Mailbox International Naming Convention).

• -7 — Indicates that the name's string representation is mUTF-7 encoded and it should be converted to UTF-8.
• -8 — Indicates that the name's is UTF-8 encoded and should be converted to mUTF-7 (default).
• name — One or more mailbox names that should be converted.

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📂 mailbox path 📂

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox path [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] [-t type] mailbox

The mailbox path command returns the filesystem path for the given mailbox. By default, this is the path to the "index" directory.

• -t type — Output the path to this mailbox location type. One of:
  • alt-dir
  • alt-mailbox
  • control
  • dir
  • index (DEFAULT)
  • index-cache
  • index-private
  • list-index
  • mailbox
• mailbox — The mailbox to query (mandatory).

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🏷️ mailbox rename 🏷️

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox rename [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-s] old_name new_name

The mailbox rename command is used to rename the mailbox old_name to new_name.

When the -s option is given, old_name will be unsubscribed and new_name will be subscribed.

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📊 mailbox status 📊

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox status [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [-t] fields mailbox...

Show the status of one or more mailboxes. The mailbox name may also contain wildcards.

This command uses by default the output formatter flow.

• -t — Summarize the values of the status fields messages, recent, unseen and/or vsize of multiple mailboxes to a sum (total).
• fields — Specify the status fields which should be shown.

In order to specify multiple status fields, enclosed them in quotes.

• all — This is a special status field name. It means show all of the following fields. When the -t option is present, it means show only the messages, recent, unseen and vsize fields.
• guid — The mailbox's globally unique identifier.
• highestmodseq — The highest mod-sequence value of all messages in the mailbox.
• messages — The number of messages in the mailbox.
• deleted — The number of messages with the \Deleted flag set.
• recent — The number of messages with the \Recent flag set.
• uidnext — The next unique identifier value.
• uidvalidity — The unique identifier validity value.
• unseen — The message sequence number of the first unseen message in the mailbox.
• vsize — The mailbox's virtual size, computed with CRLF line terminators.
• firstsaved — Saved time of the first mail in the mailbox.

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🔔 mailbox subscribe 🔔

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox subscribe [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] mailbox ...

This command is used to subscribe one or more mailboxes.

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🔕 mailbox unsubscribe 🔕

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox unsubscribe [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] mailbox ...

This command is used to unsubscribe one or more mailboxes.

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🛠️ mailbox update 🛠️

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox update [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [--mailbox-guid guid] [--uid-validity uid] [--min-next-uid uid] [--min-first-recent-uid uid] [--min-highest-modseq seq] [--min-highest-pvt-modseq seq] mailbox ...

This command is used to set UID validity, next UID, first recent UID and modification sequence values.

Usually this is only ever to be used during migration, or restoring mailbox after disaster. Settings these values is highly discouraged, and is not supported for all mail backends.

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🧼 mailbox cache purge 🧼

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox cache purge [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] mailbox ...

Purge the dovecot.index.cache file. Most importantly this frees up disk space from mails that were already deleted. Normally there i no need to run this command manually, because the compression is also run automatically.

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🧠 mailbox cache decision 🧠

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox cache decision [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] [--all] [--fields list of fields] [--last-used unix timestamp] [--decision no|temp|yes] mailbox ...

This command is used to list or change caching decisions for field(s) in mailbox(es). You can list decisions by leaving out decision and last-used parameters.

• --all — List or change all fields.
• --fields — List or change these comma/space separated fields.
• --decision — Set field caching decision. Yes means it's always cached. Temp means it's provisionally cached. No means the field is not cached.
• --last-used — Set field's last used timestamp.

NOTE: This command cannot be used to add new fields to cache! You need to first add them to configuration. Setting caching to no will not immediately drop field from cache, it will stop adding the field to cache.

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🧹 mailbox cache remove 🧹

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mailbox cache remove [-A | -u user | -F file | --no-userdb-lookup] [-S socket_path] search query

Remove any matching mail(s) from cache.

WARNING! This command can erase ALL cached data, causing system slowness.

See doveadm-search-query(7) for the search query syntax.

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✨ EXAMPLE ✨

List subscribed mailboxes, beginning with 'dovecot', of user bob:

doveadm mailbox list -s -u bob dovecot\*

dovecot
dovecot/pigeonhole
dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0

Now have a look at the status of user bob's dovecot mailboxes:

doveadm -f table mailbox status -u bob "messages vsize" dovecot\*

mailbox                                    messages vsize
dovecot                                    20501    93968492
dovecot/pigeonhole                         0        0
dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0                     47       323474

Converting an internationalized mailbox name from mUTF-7 to UTF-8 and vice versa:

doveadm mailbox mutf7 -7 "~peter/mail/&U,BTFw-/&ZeVnLIqe-"

~peter/mail/台北/日本語

doveadm mailbox mutf7 ~peter/mail/台北/日本語

~peter/mail/&U,BTFw-/&ZeVnLIqe-

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

okay bestie, so like — something's busted and you need to tell the devs? slay, that's literally how the software gets better, and we love a proactive queen 💖

Here's the vibe: report your bugs, and please include the output of doveconf -n in there. Like, do not gatekeep your config, that's the main character info they need to actually debug it 🔍

Send it all to the Dovecot Mailing List at ⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩ 📬

Want the full rundown on how to report bugs the right way? All the deets live here:

⟨https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html⟩

fr fr, that link is your bestie too — read it before you hit send so your bug report gets the glow-up it deserves ✨

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• doveadm(1) — the icon, the moment, the mothership 🫶

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and that's a wrap on DOVEADM-MAILBOX(1), bestie!! 🎀 this whole page is from source f979264, dated April 2026 🌸 go forth and mailbox with confidence, you absolute legend 👑 💅 🦋