Please also see https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/migrating_mailboxes/ if
you already haven't.
Aki
> On 05/02/2023 22:16 EET Kenneth Irving <k...@fq.edu.uy> wrote:
>
>
> Patrick: thanks a lot!
>
> So it's not enough to do a 'backup', it's also necessary to 'sync' the
> mailboxes, but using the old mail_location, that is
>
> mail_location = mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
>
> Otherwise the command doesn't find the mailbox. It said source and
> destination were the same! That was one of many errors I was getting.
>
> I had tried using '-o mail_location=/var/mail/' but also got errors and
> wasn't able to transfer the emails. I finally restored mail_location to
> it's former value, restarted dovecot, and it worked!
>
> I wasn't aware that I had first to backup and then sync to transfer all
> emails.
>
> Thanks again!
> Best regards
>
> Kenneth
>
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2023, Patrick Domack wrote:
>
> > #copy mailbox, using new mail_location setting
> > doveadm backup -u "${USER}" maildir:/home/${USERNAME}/Maildir/
> > doveadm sync -u "${USER}" maildir:/home/${USERNAME}/Maildir/
> >
> > #Update user to use maildir instead of old method, update sql?
> > .... mail_location=maildir:/home/${USERNAME}/Maildir/
> >
> > doveadm auth cache flush
> > doveadm proxy kick "${USER}"
> >
> > #copy any late additions to mailbox, using old mail_location setting
> > doveadm sync -u "${USER}" mbox:/var/mail/${USERNAME}
> >
> > #remove old format mailbox
> > rm /var/mail/${USERNAME}
> >
> > I do this one user at a time, then when done adjust my config file, and
> > remove the mail_location setting from sql, though my script has a few other
> > fixups and error checking
> >
> >
> > Quoting Kenneth Irving <k...@fq.edu.uy>:
> >
> >> Hello. I have an email server for testing purposes, using postfix 3.5.17
> >> and dovecot 2.3.13.
> >>
> >> Initially, I configured postfix to use mailboxes, but now I've changed it
> >> to maildir.
> >>
> >> Emails arrive fine, and dovecot manages them well by pop3 or imap. No
> >> problems there.
> >>
> >> But I still have a lot of emails in different mailboxes which I'd like to
> >> convert to maildir.
> >>
> >> I found mb2md, which seems to do a pretty good job. Once the mailbox is
> >> converted, dovecot manages the emails without a problem.
> >>
> >> But I also wanted to learn how to use doveadm to convert mailboxes to
> >> maildir format.
> >>
> >> I read all the documentation I could find and tried to learn how this
> >> command works. I tried different combinations, but couldn't convert
> >> mailboxes to maildir. I always get error messages. I've been unable to
> >> understand why.
> >>
> >> I tried to sync, backup, and import, to no avail. I also tried dsync,
> >> which
> >> seems to have a different syntax, with the same result.
> >>
> >> Sorry for bothering you, but if you could explain to me how this command
> >> works, I'd be very grateful.
> >>
> >> Example: I have a user, let's say joe, who has a mailbox in /var/mail/joe
> >> and I'd like to transfer those emails to /home/joe/Maildir
> >>
> >> How do I use doveadm in this situation?
> >>
> >> Best regards
> >>
> >> Kenneth
> >
> >
