MBTOOL(8)

📦
version 3.12.4 · 6 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 MBTOOL(8) — the Cyrus IMAP glow-up page 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about mbtool, straight out of the Cyrus IMAP docs. this is a section 8 manual page, so it's a system-admin type situation, and yes it is iconic. ✨

intro — that's literally all the NAME section says and honestly? mysterious queen behavior. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

mbtool [ -C config-file ] -r mailbox...
mbtool [ -C config-file ] -t mailbox...

two whole moods. pick one. 🦋

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so mbtool is that girl who does various actions on the indexes of a list of mailboxes. that's her whole thing. 💅

the actions she currently supports are, and I quote-ish:

  • -t — normalizes the internaldate time stamp of each record in the index to GMT. like, she's putting it in its correct timezone outfit. 🌈
  • -r — creates a new unique ID for each mailbox. fresh identity, new era, main character energy. 👑
the rules though, fr fr: only one action may be given, and at least one mailbox must be listed. no action = nothing happens. two actions = chaos. we don't do chaos here. 💀

and the plan?? it is intended that mbtool will be extended over time to perform more such actions. she's growing, she's evolving, we're obsessed. 🧚

mbtool reads its configuration options out of the imapd.conf(5) file unless you say otherwise with -C. iykyk. 😌

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -C config-file — use the specified configuration file config-file instead of the default imapd.conf(5). like bringing your own snack to the party instead of eating what's there. 🍓
  • -t, --normalize-internaldate — normalize internaldate on all index records of all listed mailboxes to match the Date: header if they're off by more than a day. this one is the rescue mission: it can be used to fix up a mailbox which has been restored from backup and lost its internaldate information. 😭💖 absolute lifesaver.
  • -r, --new-uniqueid — create a new unique ID for all listed mailboxes. only works for legacy mailboxes. that's the whole caveat, don't @ me, that's just what it says. 🙈

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

mbtool -r user.jsmith

create new UUID for mailbox user.jsmith. new ID, new her. ✨

mbtool -t user.jsmith

normalize internaldate on all index records in user.jsmith. timezone corrected, slay. 🦋

🌈 FILES 🌈

  • /etc/imapd.conf

the sacred text. 📜

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

💜 AUTHOR 💜

The Cyrus Team. kings. 👑

1993–2026, The Cyrus Team. that's a long reign, periodt.

okay that's the whole page bestie, no cap, nothing skipped, every flag accounted for. 💖

sign-off: this was mbtool, version 3.12.4, dated Sep 09, 2026, and she ate. go normalize something. 🎀✨💅
📦 where this page comes from