DOVEAD-SIEVE

Section: Dovecot (1)
Updated: March 2026
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NAME

dovead-sieve- Commands related to handling Sieve scripts  

SYNOPSIS

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve_cmd [lB]options[rB] [lB]arguments[rB]  

DESCRIPTION

The doveadm sieve commands are part of Pigeonhole (pigeonhole(7)), which adds Sieve (RFC 5228) and ManageSieve (RFC 5804) support to Dovecot (dovecot(1)). The doveadm sieve commands can be used to manage Sieve filtering.  

GLOBAL OPTIONS

Global doveadm(1) options: -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 -o.

-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.

 

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

scriptname

Is the name of a Sieve script, as visible to ManageSieve clients. For Sieve scripts that are stored on disk, this is the filename without the ".sieve" extension.

 

COMMANDS

 

sieve put

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve put [lB]-A | -u user | -F file | -n-userd-lookup[rB] [lB]-S socket_path[rB] [lB]-a[rB] scriptname This command puts one new Sieve script in the script storage. The script is read from standard input. If the script compiles successfully, it is stored under the provided scriptname . If the -a option is present, the Sieve script is subsequently marked as the active script for execution at delivery.  

sieve get

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve get [lB]-A | -u user | -F file | -n-userd-lookup[rB] [lB]-S socket_path[rB] scriptname This command retrieves the Sieve script named scriptname.  

sieve delete

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve delete [lB]-A | -u user | -F file | -n-userd-lookup[rB] [lB]-S socket_path[rB] [lB]-a[rB] scriptname ... This command deletes one or more Sieve scripts. The deleted script may not be the active script, unless the -a option is present.  

sieve list

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve list [lB]-A | -u user | -F file | -n-userd-lookup[rB] [lB]-S socket_path[rB] List existing Sieve scripts, and their active state.  

sieve rename

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve rename [lB]-A | -u user | -F file | -n-userd-lookup[rB] [lB]-S socket_path[rB] old_name new_name The sieve rename command is used to rename the Sieve script old_name to new_name.  

sieve activate

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve activate [lB]-A | -u user | -F file | -n-userd-lookup[rB] [lB]-S socket_path[rB] scriptname This command marks the Sieve script named scriptname as the active script for execution at delivery.  

sieve deactivate

doveadm [lB]GLOBAL OPTIONS[rB] sieve deactivate [lB]-A | -u user | -F file | -n-userd-lookup[rB] [lB]-S socket_path[rB] scriptname This command deactivates Sieve processing.  

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  

SEE ALSO

doveadm(1), doveco-lda(1), pigeonhole(7)

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Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

GLOBAL OPTIONS

OPTIONS

ARGUMENTS

COMMANDS

sieve put

sieve get

sieve delete

sieve list

sieve rename

sieve activate

sieve deactivate

REPORTING BUGS

SEE ALSO