1DELETEMAIL(1) General Commands Manual DELETEMAIL(1)
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6 deletemail - remove old mail from server
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9 deletemail [-nqsuv[v]] [-f file]
10 deletemail -h | -V
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14 deletemail is a non-interactive tool for deleting mail which is older
15 than a configurable number of days from one or more IMAP mailboxes. By
16 default, mail which is not marked as seen on the server will not be
17 deleted. Currently, the IMAP4 and IMAP4rev1 protocols are supported,
18 optionally using SSL/TLS for secure IMAP connections.
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21 -f file
22 Use file instead of $HOME/.deletemailrc for configuration.
23 -h Print a short description of all available options and exit.
25 -n Mark messages as deleted on the server, but don't expunge them
27 (that is, omit the IMAP CLOSE command). This might be useful in
28 order to test whether or not everything works as expected. How‐
29 ever, please note that the “deleted” flags will not be revoked
30 by deletemail, so these messages might be expunged by another
31 IMAP client accessing the mailbox.
32 -q Quiet output, only error messages are printed.
34 -s Don't use unique message IDs in IMAP commands. By default,
36 deletemail will use UIDs when issuing IMAP SEARCH or STORE com‐
37 mands, since UIDs are safer in case multiple IMAP clients are
38 accessing the mailbox at the same time. However, there are IMAP
39 servers which seem to have problems using UIDs. Thus, if you
40 encounter strange behaviour (like the server unexpectedly clos‐
41 ing the connection), this option might be helpful.
42 -u Delete any message which is older than the configured number of
44 days, no matter whether or not the message is marked as seen.
45 -V Print version information and exit.
47 -v[v] If the -v option is used, all commands sent to the server and
49 all server responses will be printed to the standard error
50 stream. If -v is specified twice, (quite a lot of) additional
51 debug output will be produced.
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54 By default, the configuration file $HOME/.deletemailrc will be read.
55 Each IMAP account on which deletemail should operate is configured by
56 using the keyword ACCOUNT, followed by variable: value pairs specifying
57 the account settings; one variable: value pair per line. Apart from
58 that, the keyword GLOBAL, followed by variable: value pairs may option‐
59 ally be used for specifying default settings. If GLOBAL is used, it
60 must be declared prior to any ACCOUNT settings. The default settings
61 will only take effect if they are not specified for a given ACCOUNT.
62 Configuration values may include all ASCII characters. Empty lines and
64 the rest of a line after a “#” will be ignored. Whitespace and “#”
65 must be escaped using a backslash if the value is not quoted with sin‐
66 gle or double quotes. If the value is quoted, the quote sign must be
67 escaped using a backslash. A literal backslash must always be escaped
68 using another backslash. If the last character of a configuration line
69 is a backslash, the following line will be appended prior to parsing.
70 Required Configuration Variables
72 The following configuration variables must be set, either by specifying
73 default settings using the keyword GLOBAL and/or by specifying them for
74 each ACCOUNT.
75 days: <integer>
77 The number of days that messages should stay on the server.
78 Messages which are not older than specified here will not be
79 deleted.
80 host: <string>
82 The IMAP server name or IP address.
83 pass: <string>
85 The password for authentication on the server.
86 user: <string>
88 The username for authentication on the server.
89 Optional Configuration Variables
91 The following configuration variables may be set, either by specifying
92 default settings using the keyword GLOBAL and/or by specifying them for
93 one or more ACCOUNTs.
94 expunge: yes|no
96 If set to no, messages will still be marked as deleted on the
97 server, but they won't be expunged by deletemail. However,
98 these messages might be expunged by another IMAP client access‐
99 ing the mailbox. This variable will be overridden by the -n
100 command line switch. Default: yes.
101 folder: <string> [string...]
103 The mailbox name. Multiple folders may be specified using a
104 space delimited list. Default: INBOX.
105 port: <integer>
107 The server port number. Default: 993 for SSL connections, 143
108 otherwise.
109 ssl: yes|no|starttls
111 Specifies usage of SSL/TLS for secure IMAP connections. If set
112 to yes, SSL on connect will be used; if set to starttls, the TLS
113 connection will be initiated using STARTTLS. In both cases,
114 deletemail will exit with an error prior to sending any login
115 information if the server doesn't support the respective mecha‐
116 nism. Default: no. This variable is only available if
117 deletemail was built with SSL support.
118 unseen: yes|no
120 If set to yes, any message that is older than the configured
121 number of days will be deleted, no matter whether or not the
122 message is marked as seen. If set to no, messages which are not
123 marked as seen will never be deleted. This variable will be
124 overridden by the -u command line switch. Default: no.
125 use_uid: yes|no
127 If set to no, deletemail won't use unique message IDs when talk‐
128 ing to the IMAP server. See the -s command line switch (which
129 will override the use_uid setting) for implications. Default:
130 yes.
131
133 Upon successful completion, deletemail returns 0. If any sort of error
134 is encountered, deletemail returns a value other than 0.
135
137 Configure deletemail via the file $HOME/.deletemailrc, which could look
138 like this:
139 ACCOUNT # Toms INBOX on the ISPs IMAP server
141 host: imap.provider.com
142 user: tom
143 pass: h0lyPa55
144 days: 7 # delete mail if it's older than a week
145 ssl: yes # use SSL for secure IMAP connections
146 Test your configuration by creating verbose output and not expunging
148 deleted messages on the server:
149 deletemail -nv
151 Run deletemail once an hour (at twenty past) by using a crontab(5)
153 entry like the following:
154 20 * * * * /usr/local/bin/deletemail -q
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158 HOME If the configuration file is not specified on the command line,
159 $HOME/.deletemailrc will be used.
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162 $HOME/.deletemailrc default configuration file
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166 For SSL connections, deletemail currently does not support any mecha‐
167 nism to prevent “man in the middle” attacks. Future releases will
168 probably provide certificate and key fingerprint checking.
169 Apart from that, on systems that lack a useable random device (like
171 /dev/urandom), deletemail will try to collect some random data for
172 seeding OpenSSLs PRNG on it's own. However, this is insecure. Please
173 consider installing an entropy gathering daemon like EGD or PRNGD if
174 your system doesn't provide a useable random device (the output of
175 deletemail -vv will tell you whether or not that's the case). See the
176 OpenSSL manual page RAND_egd(3) for information on where to get and how
177 to install an entropy gathering daemon so that OpenSSL will use it
178 automatically.
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181 The mailbox name may not include non-ASCII characters, since they won't
182 be encoded according to the IMAP standard when talking to the server.
183 IPv6 is not supported.
184 I'm sure there are more bugs, please let me know if you find them.
186
188 Holger Weiss <holger@jhweiss.de>
189
191 fetchmail(1), crontab(1), crontab(5), cron(8), ssl(3), crypto(3)
192 April 10, 2006 DELETEMAIL(1)