DOVEADM-DUMP(1)                     Dovecot                    DOVEADM-DUMP(1)

NAME
       doveadm-dump - Dump the content of Dovecot's binary mailbox index/log

SYNOPSIS
       doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dump [-t type] path [type-specific args]

DESCRIPTION
       Dovecot uses several binary index and log files in order to improve
       performance for accessing mails. For some mailbox formats, such as
       sdbox and mdbox, the index files are part of the format itself. For
       details about index files, see [[link,design_index_format_main].

       doveadm dump is used to show the contents of those mailbox index/log
       files, in human readable format. This is mainly useful for Dovecot
       developers when debugging some problem.

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 instance-name

           If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based
           on this instance name.

           See instance_name setting for more information.



       -c config-file

           Read configuration from the given config-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.



OPTIONS
       -t type

           the file type of the file to be dumped. If the type was omitted,
           doveadm(1) tries to detect the type of path.

           type can be:

               dbox : => m.n (sdbox or mdbox mailbox file)


           fts-expunge-log : Dump the list of expunged mails in dovecot-
           expunges.log.


           fts-flatcurve : Dump the keywords indexed in fts-flatcurve indexes
           directory and their frequencies.


           imap-compress : Decompress an IMAP traffic log, which contains data
           compressed using the IMAP COMPRESSION extension.


           dcrypt-file : Dump metadata of a dcrypt encrypted file.

           type-specific args

               private_key=/path : to decrypt file contents.


           password=secret : to decrypt private key.



           dcrypt-key : Dump metadata of a dcrypt key.

           type-specific args

               private_key=/path

                   to decrypt file contents.



           password=secret

               to decrypt private key.



           dump=pem|dovecot|jwk

               to specify format to dump in.




           index : => dovecot.index, dovecot.map.index

           type-specific args

               uid=number : Dump only message with UID



           log : => dovecot.index.log, dovecot.map.index.log


           mailboxlog : => dovecot.mailbox.log


           thread : => dovecot.index.thread




ARGUMENTS
       path

           The path to the corresponding dbox storage, index or log file. If
           only a directory is specified, doveadm tries to detect the type of
           files under it and dumps them.



EXAMPLE
       Look at the contents of a mailbox's index:

         doveadm dump ~/Maildir/.work/

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

SEE ALSO
       doveadm(1)

e5ac02a                            May 2026                    DOVEADM-DUMP(1)