NAME

       ctl_mboxlist - Cyrus IMAP documentation

       Perform operations on the mailbox list database

SYNOPSIS

          ctl_mboxlist [ -C config-file ] -d [ -x ] [-y] [ -p partition ] [ -f filename ]
          ctl_mboxlist [ -C config-file ] -u [ -f filename ] [ -L ]
          ctl_mboxlist [ -C config-file ] -m [ -a ] [ -w ] [ -i ] [ -f filename ]
          ctl_mboxlist [ -C config-file ] -v [ -f filename ]

DESCRIPTION

       ctl_mboxlist is used to perform various administrative operations on the mailbox list database.

       ctl_mboxlist  reads its configuration options out of the imapd.conf(5) file unless specified otherwise by
       -C.  The configdirectory option in imapd.conf(5) is  used  to  determine  the  default  location  of  the
       mailboxes database.

OPTIONS

       -C config-file
              Use the specified configuration file config-file rather than the default imapd.conf(5).

       -d, --dump
              Dump the contents of the database to standard output in JSON format.

       -x, --remove-dumped
              When  performing  a  dump,  remove  the mailboxes dumped from the mailbox list (mostly useful when
              specified with -p).

       -y, --include-intermediaries
              When performing a dump, also list intermediary mailboxes which would be hidden from IMAP.

       -p partition, --partition=partition
              When performing a dump, dump only those mailboxes that live on partition.

       -f filename, --filename=filename
              Use the database specified by filename instead of the default (configdirectory/mailboxes.db*).

       -L, --legacy
              When performing an undump, use the legacy dump parser instead of the JSON parser.  This  might  be
              useful for importing a dump produced by an older version of Cyrus.

       -u, --undump
              Load  ("undump") the contents of the database from standard input.  The input MUST be a valid JSON
              file, unless the -L option is also supplied.

              IMPORTANT:
                 USE THIS OPTION WITH CARE.  If you have modified the dump file since it was dumped, or  if  the
                 file  was not produced by -d in the first place, or was produced on a different server, you can
                 easily break your mailboxes.db.  Undump will refuse to  process  a  syntactically-invalid  dump
                 file, but it can't do much to protect you from a valid file containing bad data.

       -m, --sync-mupdate
              For  backend servers in the Cyrus Murder, synchronize the local mailbox list file with the MUPDATE
              server.

       -a, --authoritative
              When used with -m, assume the local mailboxes file is authoritative,  that  is,  only  change  the
              mupdate server, do not delete any local mailboxes.

              IMPORTANT:
                 USE THIS OPTION WITH CARE, as it allows namespace collisions into the murder.

       -w, --warn-only
              When used with -m, print out what would be done but do not perform the operations.

       -i, --interactive
              When used with -m, asks for verification before deleting local mailboxes.

       -v, --verify
              Verify  the consistency of the mailbox list database and the spool partition(s). Mailboxes present
              in the database and not located on a spool partition, and  those  located  on  a  spool  partition
              (directory containing a valid cyrus.header file) and not present in the database will be reported.
              Note that this function is very I/O intensive.

EXAMPLES

          ctl_mboxlist -d
          Dump the mailboxes list to standard output in JSON format

          ctl_mboxlist -u < newmboxlist.dump
          Undump  (restore)  the mailboxes database from newmboxlist.dump, where newmboxlist.dump is a JSON file
          produced by ctl_mboxlist -d

          NOTE:
              Be very careful with this option.

          ctl_mboxlist -m
          Synchronize our mailboxes database with the MUPDATE server.  (One may commonly put a command like this
          into the START section of cyrus.conf(5) on backend nodes of a Murder cluster to cause the  backend  to
          synchronize its mailbox list with the mupdate master upon startup).

          ctl_mboxlist -m -w
          The same as above, but only show us what would be done, don't actually do it.

          ctl_mboxlist -m -a
          Populate the Mupdate server from our copy of the mailboxes database.

          NOTE:
              Be very careful with this option, as it can create conflicts in the Murder.

          ctl_mboxlist -m -i
          Synchronize  our  mailboxes  database  with  the MUPDATE server interactively, asking for verification
          before deleting any local mailboxes.

FILES

       /etc/imapd.conf, <configdirectory>/mailboxes.db

SEE ALSO

       imapd.conf(5), master(8)

AUTHOR

       The Cyrus Team, Nic Bernstein (Onlight), Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems)

COPYRIGHT

       1993–2025, The Cyrus Team

3.10.2                                            Jun 27, 2025                                   CTL_MBOXLIST(8)