DOVEADM-SEARCH(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-SEARCH(1)
NAME
doveadm-search - Show a list of mailbox GUIDs and message UIDs matching
given search query.
SYNOPSIS
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] search [-S socket_path] -A
search_query
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] search [-S socket_path] -F file
search_query
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] search [-S socket_path] --no-
userdb-lookup search_query
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] search [-S socket_path] -u user
search_query
DESCRIPTION
command is used to find matching messages. doveadm(1) will print the
mailbox's guid and the message's uid for each match.
options, doveadm(1) will print the fields
In the first form, doveadm(1) will executed the
In the second form, the command will be performed for all users listed
in the given file.
In the third form, the command will be performed for the user contained
in the USER environment variable.
In the last form, only matching mails of the given user(s) will be
searched.
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 over-
ridden 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/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.
-f formatter
Specifies the formatter for formatting the output. Supported format-
ters are:
flow
prints each line with key=value pairs.
pager
prints each key: value pair on its own line and separates records
with form feed character (^L).
tab
prints a table header followed by tab separated value lines.
table
prints a table header followed by adjusted value lines.
This command uses by default the output formatter flow (without the
key=prefix).
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 lay-
out.
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.
-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 do-
main 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
Show messages matching this search query. See doveadm-search-
query(7) for details.
EXAMPLE
Search in user bob's dovecot mailboxes all messages which contains the
word "todo" in the Subject: header:
doveadm search -u bob mailbox dovecot\* subject todo
3a94c928d66ebe4bda04000015811c6a 8
3a94c928d66ebe4bda04000015811c6a 25
3a94c928d66ebe4bda04000015811c6a 45
The search command is mainly useful when used together with doveadm-
fetch(1) command.
For example to save message bodies of all messages from INBOX that have
"todo" in subject, use:
doveadm search -u bob mailbox INBOX subject todo
while read guid uid; do
doveadm fetch -u bob body mailbox-guid $guid uid $uid > msg.$uid
done
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-query(7)
78ffb79 March 2025 DOVEADM-SEARCH(1)
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