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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_stor-
           age_version  setting  defaults  to  the  latest version, but can be
           overridden with -o.
       -k
           Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not  just  import_environ-
           ment 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/dove-
           cot.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 mul-
           tiple 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 AT dovecot.org>. Information about reporting  bugs  is  available
       at: <https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html>;
SEE ALSO
       doveadm(1)
e5ac02a                            May 2026                    DOVEADM-DUMP(1)