DOVEADM-FETCH(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-FETCH(1) NAME doveadm-fetch - Fetch partial/full messages or message information SYNOPSIS doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] fetch [-S socket_path] -A fields search_query doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] fetch [-S socket_path] -F file fields search_query doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] fetch [-S socket_path] --no- userdb-lookup fields search_query doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] [-f formatter] fetch [-S socket_path] -u user fields search_query DESCRIPTION doveadm fetch 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 doveadm-search(1). o Please respect your users' privacy. 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. -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. --no-userdb-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.
: Part of the body decoded, e.g. binary.1 body : The body of a message. body.
: 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 date-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. \Seen guid : A message's globally unique identifier. hdr : The header of the message. hdr. : Named header from the message. imap.body : IMAP BODY output of the message (see RFC 3501). imap.bodystructure : IMAP BODYSTRUCTURE output of the message (see RFC 3501). imap.envelope : IMAP ENVELOPE output of the message (see RFC 3501). mailbox : Name of the mailbox, in which the message is stored. The name is in UTF-8. mailbox-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) -- UTF-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 doveadm-search- query(1) for details. EXAMPLE This example based on the first example from doveadm-search(1). We are fetching the fields mailbox and date.sent from user bob's mailbox with the guid "3a94c928d66ebe4bda04000015811c6a" for the messages with the UIDs 8, 25 and 45. doveadm fetch -u bob "mailbox date.sent" mailbox-guid 3a94c928d66ebe4bda04000015811c6a uid 8,25,45 mailbox: dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0 date.sent: 2010-01-19 01:17:41 (+0100) ^L mailbox: dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0 date.sent: 2010-01-28 09:38:49 (+0100) ^L mailbox: dovecot/pigeonhole/2.0 date.sent: 2010-03-28 18:41:14 (+0200) REPORTING BUGS Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List . Information about reporting bugs is available at: SEE ALSO doveadm(1) e5ac02a May 2026 DOVEADM-FETCH(1)