mailcow-dockerized-docs/docs/manual-guides/Dovecot/u_e-dovecot-expunge.en.md

If you want to delete old mails out of the `.Junk` or `.Trash` folders or maybe delete all read mails that are older than a certain amount of time you may use dovecot's tool doveadm [man doveadm-expunge](https://wiki.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm/Expunge).

## The manual way

That said, let's dive in:

Delete a user's mails inside the junk folder that **are read** and **older** than 4 hours

=== "docker compose (Plugin)"

    ``` bash
    docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -u 'mailbox@example.com' mailbox 'Junk' SEEN not SINCE 4h
    ```

=== "docker-compose (Standalone)"

    ``` bash
    docker-compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -u 'mailbox@example.com' mailbox 'Junk' SEEN not SINCE 4h
    ```

Delete **all** user's mails in the junk folder that are **older** than 7 days

=== "docker compose (Plugin)"

    ``` bash
    docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' savedbefore 7d
    ```

=== "docker-compose (Standalone)"

    ``` bash
    docker-compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' savedbefore 7d
    ```

Delete **all** mails (of all users) in **all** folders that are **older** than 52 weeks (internal date of the mail, not the date it was saved on the system => `before` instead of `savedbefore`). Useful for deleting very old mails on all users and folders (thus especially useful for GDPR-compliance).

=== "docker compose (Plugin)"

    ``` bash
    docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox % before 52w
    ```

=== "docker-compose (Standalone)"

    ``` bash
    docker-compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox % before 52w
    ```

Delete mails inside a custom folder **inside** a user's inbox that are **not** flagged and **older** than 2 weeks

=== "docker compose (Plugin)"

    ``` bash
    docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -u 'mailbox@example.com' mailbox 'INBOX/custom-folder' not FLAGGED not SINCE 2w
    ```

=== "docker-compose (Standalone)"

    ``` bash
    docker-compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -u 'mailbox@example.com' mailbox 'INBOX/custom-folder' not FLAGGED not SINCE 2w
    ```

!!! info
    For possible [time spans](https://wiki.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm/SearchQuery#section_date_specification) or [search keys](https://wiki.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm/SearchQuery#section_search_keys) have a look at [man doveadm-search-query](https://wiki.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm/SearchQuery)

## Job scheduler

### via the host system cron

If you want to automate such a task you can create a cron job on your host that calls a script like the one below:

=== "docker compose (Plugin)"

    ``` bash
    #!/bin/bash
    # Path to mailcow-dockerized, for example: /opt/mailcow-dockerized
    cd /path/to/your/mailcow-dockerized

    docker compose exec -T dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' savedbefore 2w
    docker compose exec -T dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' SEEN not SINCE 12h
    [...]
    ```

=== "docker-compose (Standalone)"

    ``` bash
    #!/bin/bash
    # Path to mailcow-dockerized, for example: /opt/mailcow-dockerized
    cd /path/to/your/mailcow-dockerized

    docker-compose exec -T dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' savedbefore 2w
    docker-compose exec -T dovecot-mailcow doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' SEEN not SINCE 12h
    [...]
    ```

To create a cron job you may execute `crontab -e` and insert something like the following to execute a script:

```
# Execute everyday at 04:00 A.M.
0 4 * * * /path/to/your/expunge_mailboxes.sh
```

### via Docker job scheduler

To archive this with a docker job scheduler use this docker-compose.override.yml with your mailcow: 

```
version: '2.1'

services:
  
  dovecot-mailcow:
    labels:
      ofelia.enabled: "true"
      ofelia.job-exec.dovecot-expunge-trash.schedule: "0 0 4 * * *"
      ofelia.job-exec.dovecot-expunge-trash.command: "doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' savedbefore 2w"
      ofelia.job-exec.dovecot-expunge-trash.tty: "false"
```

We add a few label to our dovecot-container to activate the job scheduler and tell him in a cron compatible scheduling format when to run. Note: Ofelia uses the [scheduling format](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/robfig/cron?utm_source=godoc) of the Go cron implementation which starts with a field for seconds instead of minutes.

This docker-compose.override.yml deletes all mails older then 2 weeks from the "Junk" folder every day at 4 am. To see if things ran proper, you can not only see in your mailbox but also check Ofelia's docker log if it looks something like this:

```
common.go:124 ▶ NOTICE [Job "dovecot-expunge-trash" (8759567efa66)] Started - doveadm expunge -A mailbox 'Junk' savedbefore 2w,
common.go:124 ▶ NOTICE [Job "dovecot-expunge-trash" (8759567efa66)] Finished in "285.032291ms", failed: false, skipped: false, error: none,
```

If it failed it will say so and give you the output of the doveadm in the log to make it easy on you to debug.

In case you want to add more jobs, ensure you change the "dovecot-expunge-trash" part after "ofelia.job-exec." to something else, it defines the name of the job. Syntax of the labels you find at [mcuadros/ofelia](https://github.com/mcuadros/ofelia).