DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

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

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/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the
              given value.  In order to override multiple settings, the -o
              option may be specified 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
              iterate_query setting in
              /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext matches your
              database layout.  When using the LDAP userdb module, make sure
              that the iterate_attrs and iterate_filter settings 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
              similar 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 ALSO
       doveadm(1), doveadm-fetch(1), doveadm-purge(1), doveadm-search(1),
       doveadm-search-query(7)

Dovecot v2.2                      2015-05-09                DOVEADM-EXPUNGE(1)