NAME

       doveadm-expunge - Expunge messages matching given search query

SYNOPSIS

       doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] expunge [-S socket_path] [-d] -A search_query

       doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] expunge [-S socket_path] [-d] -F file search_query

       doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] expunge [-S socket_path] [-d] --no-userdb-lookup search_query

       doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] 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, the command will be performed for all users.

       In the second form, doveadm(1) will expunge messages of the users listed in the given

       In the third form, the command will be performed for the user contained in the USER environment variable.

       In the final form, only matching mails of the given user (s) will be expunged.

GLOBAL OPTIONS

       Global doveadm(1)

       -D

           Enables verbosity and debug messages.

       -O

           Do  not  read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the
           latest version, but can be overridden with

       -k

           Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just import_environment setting.

       -v

           Enables verbosity, including progress counter.

       -i instance-name

           If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on this instance name.

           See instance_name setting for more information.

       -c config-file

           Read configuration from the given config-file. By default it first  reads  config  socket,  and  then
           falls  back  to  /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. You can also point this to config socket of some instance
           running compatible version.

       -o setting=value

           Overrides the configuration setting from /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.

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 userdb_sql_iterate_query setting setting
           matches your database layout.

           When  using  the   LDAP   userdb   module,   make   sure   that   the   userdb_fields   setting   and
           userdb_ldap_iterate_fields  setting  settings  match  your  LDAP schema. Otherwise doveadm(1) will be
           unable to iterate over all users.

       -d

           Delete the mailbox if it is empty after expunging.

       -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.

       --no-userdb-lookup

           Do not perform userdb lookup. Use the USER environment variable to specify the username.

       -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).

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: https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html

SEE ALSO

       doveadm(1), doveadm-search(1)

78ffb79                                            March 2025                                 DOVEADM-EXPUNGE(1)