[Dovecot] n00b here -- pop email deletion
I'm running Dovecot IMAP and POP3 on Debian. But it look's like it's keeping mail in the user's inbox on the server until it's deleted by the user. I thought POP servers deleted email as soon as it was downloaded, but apparently not, according to dovecot.org.
Is there something in the Dovecot conf I can do to get rid of all this redundant crud?
I see several conversations on the 'Net about "quotas" that look like they might keep stuff around for a few days or weeks, then delete. That sounds lovely, but I don't understand them enough to try to make it happen.
dovecot -n:
# 1.0.15: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S protocols: imap pop3 ssl_listen: * ssl_disable: yes disable_plaintext_auth: no login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login login_max_processes_count: 12 mail_privileged_group: mail mail_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3 pop3_uidl_format(default): pop3_uidl_format(imap): pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %08Xu%08Xv auth default: mechanisms: plain login passdb: driver: pam userdb: driver: passwd socket: type: listen client: path: /var/spool/postfix/private/auth mode: 432 user: postfix group: postfix
-- Glenn English
On 07/10/2011 07:45 PM, Glenn English wrote:
I'm running Dovecot IMAP and POP3 on Debian. But it look's like it's keeping mail in the user's inbox on the server until it's deleted by the user. I thought POP servers deleted email as soon as it was downloaded, but apparently not, according to dovecot.org.
Is there something in the Dovecot conf I can do to get rid of all this redundant crud?
I see several conversations on the 'Net about "quotas" that look like they might keep stuff around for a few days or weeks, then delete. That sounds lovely, but I don't understand them enough to try to make it happen.
You can do things on the server to mitigate damage from people who check the "leave messages on server for eternity" box, but generally, this is a client preference.
Outlook, off the top of my head, has at least
- never delete
- delete messages after N days
- delete messages after I delete them locally
- delete immediately
On Jul 10, 2011, at 5:52 PM, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
You can do things on the server to mitigate damage from people who check the "leave messages on server for eternity" box, but generally, this is a client preference.
What things can I do on the server? Many of my people use Macs, and there's nothing (I can find) in the iMail config to turn off the eternity switch.
-- Glenn English
On 07/10/2011 07:59 PM, Glenn English wrote:
On Jul 10, 2011, at 5:52 PM, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
You can do things on the server to mitigate damage from people who check the "leave messages on server for eternity" box, but generally, this is a client preference.
What things can I do on the server? Many of my people use Macs, and there's nothing (I can find) in the iMail config to turn off the eternity switch.
With POP3, they don't have a "Trash" folder so you're probably stuck setting a quota[1].
You could also run a cron job or maybe use the expire plugin to get rid of old messages, but that would likely piss someone off eventually.
And, I guess, if they're leaving *every* message on the server, you could switch them to IMAP. They can't possibly leave any more stuff on there, right?
On Jul 10, 2011, at 6:09 PM, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
You could also run a cron job or maybe use the expire plugin to get rid of old messages, but that would likely piss someone off eventually.
About 15 seconds after they lose a picture of somebody's baby.
And, I guess, if they're leaving *every* message on the server, you could switch them to IMAP. They can't possibly leave any more stuff on there, right?
Sigh. They were IMAP -- I was trying to help them -- I got them to switch to POP because their email directories were getting too big; they never delete anything. I was hoping that POP would fix the server's directory size, and they could keep all the baby pictures they wanted to.
-- Glenn English
I found it. It's in the POP config in iMail -- I was looking at the IMAP configuration. I'm embarrassed and I apologize for being a n00b.
Thanks very much for attempting to answer a lame question.
-- Glenn English
On 7/10/2011 7:23 PM, Glenn English wrote:
Sigh. They were IMAP -- I was trying to help them -- I got them to switch to POP because their email directories were getting too big; they never delete anything. I was hoping that POP would fix the server's directory size, and they could keep all the baby pictures they wanted to.
What is the actual nature of the problem you are attempting to solve Glenn? Disk space? Performance degradation?
Switching users from IMAP to POP will never solve either of these. You need either more disk space or quotas (filesystem level, not Dovecot quotas), or both. You may also want to look into an HSM system depending on your budget and overall storage system complexity. HSM rarely makes sense for a single server.
-- Stan
Sunday, July 10, 2011, 7:09:37 PM, Michael wrote:
On 07/10/2011 07:59 PM, Glenn English wrote:
On Jul 10, 2011, at 5:52 PM, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
You can do things on the server to mitigate damage from people who check the "leave messages on server for eternity" box, but generally, this is a client preference.
What things can I do on the server? Many of my people use Macs, and there's nothing (I can find) in the iMail config to turn off the eternity switch.
With POP3, they don't have a "Trash" folder so you're probably stuck setting a quota[1].
You could also run a cron job or maybe use the expire plugin to get rid of old messages, but that would likely piss someone off eventually.
And, I guess, if they're leaving *every* message on the server, you could switch them to IMAP. They can't possibly leave any more stuff on there, right?
Actually, you should have linked to http://wiki1.dovecot.org/Quota. http://wiki2.dovecot.org is used for Dovecot v2.0.
The OP is using Dovecot 1.x. But, I see the OP in the latest message response has found the setting in the email client.
-- Best regards, Duane mailto:duane@duanemail.org
Sunday, July 10, 2011, 6:45:31 PM, Glenn wrote:
I'm running Dovecot IMAP and POP3 on Debian. But it look's like it's keeping mail in the user's inbox on the server until it's deleted by the user. I thought POP servers deleted email as soon as it was downloaded, but apparently not, according to dovecot.org.
Is the email client used to read email set to leave mail on the server for a period of time or indefinitely?
Is there something in the Dovecot conf I can do to get rid of all this redundant crud?
Recent versions of Dovecot can use doveadm to remove messages off the server that have the deleted and seen flags set. I'm not sure about doing the same for earlier versions of Dovecot.
With Dovecot 2.0.12, I have a cron set up to remove messages that are marked as deleted using:
/usr/local/bin/doveadm expunge -A mailbox '*' deleted
I see several conversations on the 'Net about "quotas" that look like they might keep stuff around for a few days or weeks, then delete. That sounds lovely, but I don't understand them enough to try to make it happen.
dovecot -n:
# 1.0.15: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S protocols: imap pop3 ssl_listen: * ssl_disable: yes disable_plaintext_auth: no login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login login_max_processes_count: 12 mail_privileged_group: mail mail_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3 pop3_uidl_format(default): pop3_uidl_format(imap): pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %08Xu%08Xv auth default: mechanisms: plain login passdb: driver: pam userdb: driver: passwd socket: type: listen client: path: /var/spool/postfix/private/auth mode: 432 user: postfix group: postfix
-- Best regards, Duane mailto:duane@duanemail.org
On Jul 10, 2011, at 6:00 PM, Duane Hill wrote:
Is the email client used to read email set to leave mail on the server for a period of time or indefinitely?
As far as I can tell, yes it is (Apple Mail seems to not have anything about that option, and it defaults to "keeping stuff for eternity").
Actually, Apple Mail seems to download email to the user *and* leave it on the server.
Recent versions of Dovecot can use doveadm to remove messages off the server that have the deleted and seen flags set. I'm not sure about doing the same for earlier versions of Dovecot.
That'd do just fine. But the best I can do with Debian stable is 1.2, and there's no 'doveadm' in the apt lists. Bears looking into, though...
-- Glenn English
participants (4)
-
Duane Hill
-
Glenn English
-
Michael Orlitzky
-
Stan Hoeppner