Can I encrypt already existant unencrypted mail before I start using the mail-crypt plugin?

[Aki Tuomi]

> On 16/02/2023 07:18 EET mailinglist-subscriptions <mailinglist-subscriptions at protonmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  
> Hi,
> 
> I am using dovecot 2.3.16, along with postfix and a PostgreSQL database for managing virtual accounts.
> 
> I'd like to start using the mail-crypt plugin. However, I'm having a bit some difficulty understanding the documentation at 
> 
> https://doc.dovecot.org/configuration_manual/mail_crypt_plugin 
> 
> to reach my goal. I plan to ask questions about those issues by starting new threads in this mailing list. But before I even come to that, I'd like to investigate the following:
> 
> The above documentation only addresses a clean install and doesn't seem to mention encrypting already existent unencrypted mails, like my server has. Is it possible to encrypt those before I start using the mail-crypt plugin, such that it will be able to decrypt those messages as well?
> 
> If it is, I am assuming that how I would go about achieving that will be very dependent on the ultimate configuration I have in mind (pub/priv keys, etc.). So I don't expect a full-fledged guide. However, if you could perhaps give a general overview of what would be needed to achieve this, I would very much appreciate that.
> 
> Thank you.

It will be easiest to do migration to new server, then the data will get encrypted while migrating. It is possible to write a script to do this, but will be much more hassle than migration.

You might even be able to do it for one user at a time, by doing migration from maildir to maildir and then moving the new maildir over the old one.

Aki