[Dovecot] Deleting everything left from lazy expunge

[Scott Silva]

on 5-20-2009 7:26 AM J.P. Trosclair spake the following:
> Romer Ventura wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> My storage is running low and i was wondering what would be the best 
>> and easy way of deleting everything within the "deleted" and 
>> "expunged" folders for every user...?
>>
>> My mail resides in: /srv/mail/vmail/MYDOMAIN.COM/<users>/Maildir/
>>
>> Thanks..!
> 
> You can probably just delete everything in the respective maildir
> folders (.../<users>/Maildir/[.Deleted|.Expunged]) on the file system
> for each user without trouble. I've personally just wiped entire maildir
> folders before (in a development environment) without a noticeable problem.
> 
> I've just executed (with dovecot running):
> 
> rm -rf cur/ new/ *.index*
> 
> on the inbox of a user on a development server, then logged in with IMAP
> and dovecot re-created the necessary files and folders, no errors in the
> logs. I'd still test it on a fake account on your server to how your
> version of dovecot behaves before committing to this action.
> 
> Also, your users might not be too happy with you if you wipe their
> deleted mail, but that's between you and them. The deleted items folder
> is synonymous to "My Personal Email Archive" for most of our users.

I also have that problem with users. I try and tell them that a trashcan is
not a storage container, but unless you set a policy and enforce it, you
really can't change their minds.

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