DOVEADM-EXPUNGE(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-EXPUNGE(1)NAMEdoveadm-expunge - Expunge messages matching given search query
SYNOPSIS
doveadm [-Dv] expunge [-S socket_path] [-d] search_query
doveadm [-Dv] expunge [-S socket_path] [-d] -A search_query
doveadm [-Dv] expunge [-S socket_path] [-d] -F file search_query
doveadm [-Dv] expunge [-S socket_path] [-d] -u user search_query
DESCRIPTION
This command can be used to expunge mails matching the given search
query. It is typically used to expunge old mails from users' Trash
and/or Spam mailboxes. To test which messages a given search query
would match, you can use doveadm fetch or doveadm search commands.
In the first form, doveadm(1) will executed the expunge action with the
environment of the logged in system user.
In the second form, the command will be performed for all users.
In the third form, doveadm(1) will expunge messages of the users listed
in the given file.
In the fourth form, only matching mails of the given user(s) will be
expunged.
OPTIONS
Global doveadm(1) options:
-D Enables verbosity and debug messages.
-o setting=value
Overrides the configuration setting from /usr/local/etc/dove‐
cot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. In
order to override multiple settings, the -o option may be speci‐
fied multiple times.
-v Enables verbosity, including progress counter.
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 iter‐
ate_query setting in /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext
matches your database layout. When using the LDAP userdb mod‐
ule, make sure that the iterate_attrs and iterate_filter set‐
tings in /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext 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 sim‐
ilar 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.
-d Delete the mailbox if it is empty after expunging.
-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).
When neither the -A option, nor the -F file option, nor the
-u user was specified, the command will be executed with the
environment of the currently logged in user.
ARGUMENTS
search_query
Expunge messages matching this search query. See
doveadm-search-query(7) for details.
EXAMPLE
This example expunges messages from Spam mailbox that were saved/copied
there more than two weeks ago:
doveadm expunge -u jane.doe@example.org mailbox Spam savedbefore 2w
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List
<dovecot@dovecot.org>. Information about reporting bugs is available
at: http://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
SEE ALSOdoveadm(1), doveadm-fetch(1), doveadm-purge(1), doveadm-search(1),
doveadm-search-query(7)Dovecot v2.2 2015-05-09 DOVEADM-EXPUNGE(1)
