DOVEADM-DUMP(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-DUMP(1)
NAME
doveadm-dump - Dump the content of Dovecot's binary mailbox index/log
SYNOPSIS
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dump [-t type] path [type-specific args]
DESCRIPTION
Dovecot uses several binary index and log files in order to improve
performance for accessing mails. For some mailbox formats, such as
sdbox and mdbox, the index files are part of the format itself. For
details about index files, see [[link,design_index_format_main].
doveadm dump is used to show the contents of those mailbox index/log
files, in human readable format. This is mainly useful for Dovecot
developers when debugging some problem.
GLOBAL OPTIONS
Global doveadm(1)
-D
Enables verbosity and debug messages.
-O
Do not read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_stor-
age_version setting defaults to the latest version, but can be
overridden with
-k
Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just import_environ-
ment 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/dove-
cot.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 mul-
tiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.
OPTIONS
-t type
was omitted, doveadm(1) tries to detect the type of
type can be:
dbox : => m.n (sdbox or mdbox mailbox file)
fts-expunge-log : Dump the list of expunged mails in dovecot-
expunges.log.
fts-flatcurve : Dump the keywords indexed in fts-flatcurve indexes
directory and their frequencies.
imap-compress : Decompress an IMAP traffic log, which contains data
compressed using the IMAP COMPRESSION extension.
dcrypt-file : Dump metadata of a dcrypt encrypted file.
type-specific args
private_key=/path : to decrypt file contents.
password=secret : to decrypt private key.
dcrypt-key : Dump metadata of a dcrypt key.
type-specific args
private_key=/path
to decrypt file contents.
password=secret
to decrypt private key.
dump=pem|dovecot|jwk
to specify format to dump in.
index : => dovecot.index, dovecot.map.index
type-specific args
uid=number : Dump only message with UID
log : => dovecot.index.log, dovecot.map.index.log
mailboxlog : => dovecot.mailbox.log
thread : => dovecot.index.thread
ARGUMENTS
path
The path to the corresponding dbox storage, index or log file. If
only a directory is specified, doveadm tries to detect the type of
files under it and dumps them.
EXAMPLE
Look at the contents of a mailbox's index:
doveadm dump ~/Maildir/.work/
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List
<dovecot AT dovecot.org>. Information about reporting bugs is available
at: https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
SEE ALSO
doveadm(1)
78ffb79 March 2025 DOVEADM-DUMP(1)