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You are here: manpages

DOVEAD-FETCH

Section: Dovecot (1)
Updated: February 2026
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

dovead-fetch- Fetch partial/full messages or message information

SYNOPSIS

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] [lB]-f formatter[rB] fetch [lB]-S socket_path[rB] -A fields search_query doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] [lB]-f formatter[rB] fetch [lB]-S socket_path[rB] -F file fields search_query doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] [lB]-f formatter[rB] fetch [lB]-S socket_path[rB] -n-userd-lookup fields search_query doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] [lB]-f formatter[rB] fetch [lB]-S socket_path[rB] -u user fields search_query

DESCRIPTION

can be used to fetch messages' contents and metadata. This can be useful for scripts and for debugging. If you want to fetch messages one at a time, see dovead-search(1).

*: Please respect your users' privacy.

GLOBAL OPTIONS

Global doveadm(1) -D

: Enables verbosity and debug messages.

-O

: Do not read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the latest version, but can be overridden with

-k

: Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just import_environment setting.

-v

: Enables verbosity, including progress counter.

-i instanc-name

: If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on this instance name. See instance_name setting for more information.

-c confi-file

: Read configuration from the given confi-file. By default it first reads config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dovecot.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 multiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.

-f formatter

Specifies the formatter for formatting the output. Supported formatters are: flow

: prints each line with key=value pairs.

json

: prints a JSON array of JSON objects.

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 pager.

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 layout. 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.

-n-userd-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 domain 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

fields

One or more result field names to display, if the search_query matches any messages. In order to specify multiple fields, enclose them in single or double quotes. Supported fields are:

: binary : Message body in decoded format.

: binary.<section> : Part of the body decoded, e.g. binary.1

: body : The body of a message.

: body.<section> : Part of the body, e.g. body.1

: body.preview : Short preview of the body.

: body.snippet : Old alias for preview.

: date.received : Date and time of final delivery, when the message was delivered to a user's mailbox for the first time. The internal date and time of the source message, when the message was copied by the IMAP COPY command. The dat-time attribute when present, otherwise the current time, when the message was saved by the IMAP APPEND command.

: date.received.unixtime : date.received as unix timestamp.

: date.saved : Date and time when the message was saved to mailbox.

: date.saved.unixtime : date.saved as unix timestamp.

: date.sent : Date and time of the message's Date: header.

: date.sent.unixtime : date.sent as unix timestamp.

: flags : A message's IMAP flags, e.g. [rs]Seen

: guid : A message's globally unique identifier.

: hdr : The header of the message.

: hdr.<name> : Named header from the message.

: : IMAP BODY output of the message (see RFC 3501).

: : IMAP BODYSTRUCTURE output of the message (see RFC 3501).

: : IMAP ENVELOPE output of the message (see RFC 3501).

: mailbox : Name of the mailbox, in which the message is stored. The name is in UT-8.

: mailbo-guid : The globally unique identifier of the mailbox, in which the message is located.

: modseq : Modification sequence number for the mail.

: pop3.order : A message's order number within a mailbox.

: pop3.uidl : A message's unique (POP3) identifier within a mailbox.

: refcount : Mail reference count, mdbox only.

: seq : A message's sequence number in a mailbox.

: size.physical : A message's physical size.

: size.virtual : A message's virtual size, computed with CRLF line terminators.

: storageid : Mailbox driver specific ID for the mail.

: text : The entire message (header and body).

: text.utf8 : The entire message (header and body) [em] UT-8 encoded.

: uid : A message's unique (IMAP) identifier in a mailbox.

: user : A message owner's login name.

search_query

: Fetch messages matching this search query. See dovead-searc-query(1) for details.

EXAMPLE

This example based on the first example from dovead-search(1). We are fetching the fields

doveadm fetch-u bob "mailbox date.sent" mailbo-guid 3a94c928d66ebe4bda04000015811c6a uid 8,25,45

mailbox: dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0
date.sent: 201-0-19 01:17:41 (+0100)
^L
mailbox: dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0
date.sent: 201-0-28 09:38:49 (+0100)
^L
mailbox: dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0
date.sent: 201-0-28 18:41:14 (+0200)

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs, including doveconf-n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List ladovecot@dovecot.orgra. Information about reporting bugs is available at: https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html