On 8.12.2019 22.10, Michael Grimm via dovecot wrote: > Hi, > > I do store mail in mdbox format of 150m in size (dovecot 2.3.9). > > Once in a while I do experience mdbox files of smaller size, even after > applying 'doveadm purge' and previous expunges by the users. like: > > -rw------- 1 vmail dovecot 104854595 Feb 9 2019 > /var/mail/.maildirs/userX/storage/m.22 > -rw------- 1 vmail dovecot 29088478 Mar 8 2019 > /var/mail/.maildirs/userX/storage/m.31 > -rw------- 1 vmail dovecot 98210890 Mar 20 2019 > /var/mail/.maildirs/userX/storage/m.39 > > (Currently the counter is at file number 129.) > > Well, I never experienced missing mail or alike, but these "holes" in > filesize irritates me, and yes, it is more or less a cosmetic issue. > > Nevertheless, I do sometimes want to get rid of these "holes" by backing up > all mail and re-injecting the backup into a vanilla account of that user. And > I used this approach when I wanted to store all mail messages in larger mdbox > files; again, rather a cosmetic issue. > > BUT that takes a very, very long time contrary to the speed of 'doveadm > purge'. Unfortunately, that command starts somewhere with more recent mdbox > files and never from scratch (oldest mdbox file). > > Whishlist: Would it be much of an effort to implement an option like: > > 'doveadm purge -f' > and '-f' standing for 'force' or 'from scratch' or 'from the very first > message found' or 'you name it'? > > Thanks in advance and thanks for Dovecot and with kind regards, > Michael > What purge does is that it removes mails that have refcount=0, so "from scratch" makes no sense. Renumbering the files "for neatness" is rather heavy operation, as you'd need to move mails around quite a lot. This is very little benefit to just cater for holes.
Aki
