> On 10/02/2026 23:44 EET Alain Perry via dovecot <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hello, > > First of all, I'm sorry if this isn't the best place to ask for that kind of > help, in which case I'd appreciate a pointer to any adequate asynchronous > channel. > > ------------ > Some context (skip to next horizontal line if you don't care): > I'm happily self-hosting a few services at home. Some months ago I decided I > needed to backup my emails to my NAS, in a way that would allow me to read or > search them from a web browser as easily as I did with my "cloud" mailboxes. > Since I didn't find a modern yet simple webmail that could directly read a > Maildir storage, I finally bit the bullet and ran a dovecot container to copy > my emails to (using imapsync). Since I opted for an IMAP server, I thought I > didn't need to worry too much about the storage format and used the sdbox that > (I believe) was the default. > > Backing up worked and searching worked and I was a happy person. I used my > local webmail a couple of times to search for an old email, found it, thought > this was a job well done that I wouldn't have to worry too much about anymore. > > Then, it stopped working. I honestly don't remember what I did around that > time > that might have broken things or caused a data loss, but IMAP clients couldn't > access my emails anymore. Since I had other more urgent matters to address, I > let that problem rot. Now that I have a bit more time, I decided to try again. > ------------ > > My problem is that, while it is clear that some data is missing, I have no > clue > what that data is and how (if ?) I can rebuild it. > The folder structure is there in /src/vmail/username/Mail/mailboxes. I do see > index(.log) and dbox-Mails/u.* in the folders, so it does look like it > conforms > to the doc in this regard. > > However, the paths returned for the mailboxes by "doveadm mailbox path" all > use > guid's, and do not exist on the filesystem. I don't quite understand how it > got > to this point, nor what I should have lying around at those paths but I wonder > if it is at all possible to rebuild them so I might regain access to my > archives. > > Is there something I can do to recover my emails ? > > Thanks for reaching this point, and thank you for any help and/or pointers you > might be able to provide. >
This sounds like you've set LAYOUT=index unintentionally, can you please send your doveconf -n output to the list? Aki _______________________________________________ dovecot mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
