[Dovecot] Please HELP: how to delete all messages older than X days from the server?

[Răzvan Sandu]

Hello,


Would you please help me solve the following case?

My (CentOS) server runs dovecot and allows both POP3 and IMAP service.
Users are virtual users (no home directories), with messages stored in 
Maildir directories under /var/spool/mail/vhosts/example.com/username

Some of them use mobile devices (without local storage space), so I must 
allow IMAP access, not just POP3. But the storage on the server must be 
for a strictly *limited* period of time.

As an admin, I'm trying to force each user to:

- download *locally* received messages when they arrive at the office
- don't let copies of messages on the server (incoming, sent, trash, 
drafts, etc.)

For various reasons, e-mail client configuration is not under my control 
(I can't rely on client configuration for implementing this).

Implementing filesystem quotas is not an option because a. presently, 
all virtual users share same UID/GID on the server and b. administrative 
reasons (the "full quota" situation may occur unexpectedly and this is 
not tolerable in corporate policy).


So I need EITHER:

1. a method of downloading locally *all* messages from the server 
(incoming, sent, trash, drafts, etc.) to the workstation, when the user 
consults his/her mailbox from a POP3 desktop client, thus completely 
*emptying* the user's mailbox on the server

OR

2. an automatic, elegant but forceful method of deleting all messages 
older than X days (incoming, sent, trash, drafts, etc.)


I've tried to use a line such as:

doveadm expunge -u john.doe at example.com before 4w

run as root, from a script in crontab, but for "expunge" doveadm won't 
let me skip the "-u" parameter (to perform the expunge for *all* users).


Could you please help? Any sugestion is welcomed.


Thanks a lot,
Răzvan
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