IDLED(8)

📦
version 3.12.4 · 5 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 IDLED(8) 💖

so like… it's idled, from the Cyrus IMAP gang 🦋 and bestie it is literally the reason your IMAP client doesn't have to keep asking "any new mail?? any new mail??" like a clingy ex. Sit down, hydrate, let's get into it. 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

idled — Cyrus IMAP documentation

Providing near real-time updates for IMAP IDLE 🎀 (yes the name is just the vibe, we love a self-explanatory queen)

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

idled [ -C config-file ]

that's it. that's the whole invocation. minimal. iconic. 💅

🧚 DESCRIPTION 🧚

okay so. idled is a long lived datagram daemon 👑 — like, it does not clock out, it does not take a lunch break, it is committed — and what it does is receive notifications about mailbox changes, and then it signals the appropriate imapd so that imapd can go tell the client that something changed. ✨

So the flow is: stuff happens in a mailbox → idled hears about it → imapd gets nudged → the client finds out basically immediately instead of finding out whenever it next feels like polling. no cap, it's giving efficiency. 🌈

idled is usually started from master(8). 🫶

And like any well-behaved Cyrus daemon, idled reads its configuration options out of the imapd.conf(5) file — unless you specify otherwise with -C. 📖

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -C config-file — use the config file you name in config-file instead of the default imapd.conf(5). that's the whole option list. one flag. main character energy, honestly. 😌

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

idled is commonly included in the DAEMON section of cyrus.conf(5), like so: 🦋

DAEMON {
    idled                   cmd="/usr/lib/cyrus/bin/idled"
}

look at her. tucked right into the DAEMON block. cozy. 💖

🌈 FILES 🌈

  • /etc/imapd.conf

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

go read those too, they're all part of the same friend group 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

The Cyrus Team, Nic Bernstein (Onlight) 💜

1993–2026, The Cyrus Team

and that's the whole page bestie!! 🎀 this was idled version 3.12.4, dated Sep 09, 2026, brought to you by the Cyrus IMAP crew — mwah, love that for us 💖✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from