MBEXAMINE(8)

💅 MBEXAMINE 💅

okay bestie, welcome to mbexamine — that's section 8 of the Cyrus IMAP manual, and she is literally the mailbox detective you didn't know you needed. 🔍✨

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✨ NAME ✨

mbexamine — Cyrus IMAP documentation

Examine a cyrus-format mailbox 🦋

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

mbexamine [ -C config-file ] [ -u uid ] mailbox...
mbexamine [ -C config-file ] [ -s seqnum] mailbox...
mbexamine [ -C config-file ] -q mailbox...
mbexamine [ -C config-file ] -c mailbox...

like, four whole moods, pick your fighter 💖

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so mbexamine is gonna go peek inside a cyrus format mailbox — the header, the index, and the cache files — and dump all the info that's hiding in there. it's giving "x-ray vision but for mail" 🩻✨

and she's not nosy about everything either — if you only care about one specific message, you can tell her to chill and only look at a certain uid or sequence number using the -s and -u switches. no cap. 👑

where does she get her settings? she reads her configuration options straight out of the imapd.conf(5) file — unless you say otherwise with -C. and to actually find the mailbox on disk, she uses <configdirectory>/mailboxes.db. that's the map, bestie. 🗺️

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -C config-file — use this specific config-file instead of the default imapd.conf(5). your config, your rules. 💅
• -u uid, --uid=uid — dump info for the given uid only. just that one. tunnel vision, but make it iconic. 👁️
• -s seqnum, --seq=seqnum — dump info for the given sequence number seqnum only. same energy, different number. 🔢
• -q, --check-quota — compare the quota usage in cyrus.index against the actual message file sizes, and report any differences. and if there are differences? the mailbox SHOULD be reconstructed. not optional, bestie, that's a whole situation. 😭
• -c, --check-message-files — compare the records in cyrus.index to the actual message files and report any differences. this one's your girl if message files got manipulated manually and/or restored incorrectly — she'll catch it. 🙈

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

mbexamine user.jsmith

Examine the mailbox hierarchy rooted at user.jsmith. 🦋

mbexamine -u 00000004 user.jsmith

Examine the mailbox hierarchy rooted at user.jsmith, looking for messages with UID = 00000004. 🎯

mbexamine -q user.jsmith

Examine the mailbox hierarchy rooted at user.jsmith, checking quotas. 💰

mbexamine -c user.jsmith

Examine the mailbox hierarchy rooted at user.jsmith, comparing index records to the actual message files in the mailbox directory. 📂

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🧚 FILES 🧚

• /etc/imapd.conf
• <configdirectory>/mailboxes.db

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• imapd.conf(5)

iykyk 💜

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

The Cyrus Team, Nic Bernstein (Onlight)

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🫶 COPYRIGHT 🫶

1993–2026, The Cyrus Team

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fr fr, that's the whole page. go examine something. 🔥

3.12.4 · Sep 09, 2026 · that's the vibe, that's the version, that's the date — mwah 💋 MBEXAMINE(8) 4ever 🌈💖