Delete all emails before X date

Hi all,

I'm trying to figure out how to clear a mailbox somehow automatically.
What I want is to delete any email that is older than X days from the imap folders.

I tried as per Dovecot docs:

Code:

doveadm expunge -u [email protected] mailbox INBOX SENTBEFORE 1-Jan-2020

but it doesn't delete any email. The command ends without errors but emails before 1-Jan-2020 are still there.

Any help is more than welcome.

Thanks

 

Same problem; it doesn't delete any email and there are hundreds before that date.

Code:

root@email2:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir# du -csh ../Maildir/
3.2G    ../Maildir/
3.2G    total
root@email2:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir# doveadm expunge -u [email protected] mailbox INBOX SENTBEFORE 2020-01-01
root@email2:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir# du -csh ../Maildir/
3.2G    ../Maildir/
3.2G    total

 

I'm not sure what you are saying Thom. The largest folder is the cur inside the Maildir folder.
This particular email that I'm trying to cleanup has no custom folders.

 

doveadm-expunge man page tells how to test which e-mails match the query. Have you tried that?

 

There isn't any doveadm-expunge command, it is used as the command I pasted above (command with argument).

 

Code:

root@email2:~# doveadm mailbox list -u [email protected]
Notes
INBOX.Trash
Sent
Trash
Drafts
Junk
INBOX

 

I never said there was.
However, the man page exists. At least on my Debian 9 system.

Code:

# man doveadm-expunge  | head
DOVEADM-EXPUNGE(1)                  Dovecot                 DOVEADM-EXPUNGE(1)

NAME
       doveadm-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

 

@Taleman, I've read the man page and tried a few things which didn't work and this is why I'm posting in the forums.

Here is the output with the debug enabled:

Code:

root@email2:# doveadm -D expunge -u [email protected] mailbox '*' before 30w
Debug: Loading modules from directory: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules
Debug: Module loaded: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/lib10_quota_plugin.so
Debug: Loading modules from directory: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm
Debug: Skipping module doveadm_acl_plugin, because dlopen() failed: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm/lib10_doveadm_acl_plugin.so: undefined symbol: acl_user_module (this is usually intentional, so just ignore this message)
Debug: Skipping module doveadm_expire_plugin, because dlopen() failed: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm/lib10_doveadm_expire_plugin.so: undefined symbol: expire_set_deinit (this is usually intentional, so just ignore this message)
Debug: Module loaded: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm/lib10_doveadm_quota_plugin.so
Debug: Module loaded: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm/lib10_doveadm_sieve_plugin.so
Debug: Skipping module doveadm_fts_lucene_plugin, because dlopen() failed: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm/lib20_doveadm_fts_lucene_plugin.so: undefined symbol: lucene_index_iter_deinit (this is usually intentional, so just ignore this message)
Debug: Skipping module doveadm_fts_plugin, because dlopen() failed: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm/lib20_doveadm_fts_plugin.so: undefined symbol: fts_user_get_language_list (this is usually intentional, so just ignore this message)
Debug: Skipping module doveadm_mail_crypt_plugin, because dlopen() failed: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/doveadm/libdoveadm_mail_crypt_plugin.so: undefined symbol: mail_crypt_box_get_pvt_digests (this is usually intentional, so just ignore this message)
doveadm([email protected])<31431><>: Debug: auth USER input: [email protected] home=/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info mail=maildir:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir uid=5000 gid=5000 quota_rule=*:storage=4294967296B sieve=/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/.sieve
doveadm([email protected])<31431><>: Debug: Added userdb setting: mail=maildir:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir
doveadm([email protected])<31431><>: Debug: Added userdb setting: plugin/quota_rule=*:storage=4294967296B
doveadm([email protected])<31431><>: Debug: Added userdb setting: plugin/sieve=/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/.sieve
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Effective uid=5000, gid=5000, home=/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Quota root: name=user backend=dict args=:file:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/.quotausage
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Quota rule: root=user mailbox=* bytes=4294967296 messages=0
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Quota grace: root=user bytes=429496729 (10%)
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: dict quota: [email protected], uri=file:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/.quotausage, noenforcing=0
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Namespace inbox: type=private, prefix=, sep=., inbox=yes, hidden=no, list=yes, subscriptions=yes location=maildir:/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: maildir++: root=/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir, index=, indexpvt=, control=, inbox=/var/vmail/mydomain.com/info/Maildir, alt=
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: quota: quota_over_flag check: quota_over_script unset - skipping
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Mailbox Notes: Mailbox opened because: expunge
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Mailbox INBOX.Trash: Mailbox opened because: expunge
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Mailbox Sent: Mailbox opened because: expunge
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=432
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=433
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=434
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=435
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=436
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=437
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=438
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=439
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=440
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=441
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=442
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=443
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=444
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=445
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=446
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=447
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=448
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=449
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=450
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=451
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=452
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=453
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=454
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=455
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=456
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: expunge: box=Sent uid=457
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Mailbox Trash: Mailbox opened because: expunge
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Mailbox Drafts: Mailbox opened because: expunge
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Mailbox Junk: Mailbox opened because: expunge
doveadm([email protected]): Debug: Mailbox INBOX: Mailbox opened because: expunge

 

The last command with '*' worked and cleanup the emails/reduce size.

Thanks a lot