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<section id="deleting-and-undeleting-messages-and-folders">
<span id="imap-admin-sop-restoring-expunged-messages"></span><h1>Deleting and Undeleting Messages and Folders<a class="headerlink" href="#deleting-and-undeleting-messages-and-folders" title="Permalink to this heading"></a></h1>
<section id="terminology-definitions">
<h2>Terminology & Definitions<a class="headerlink" href="#terminology-definitions" title="Permalink to this heading"></a></h2>
<p>This section clarifies some of the subtle nuances between delete,
expunge and expire in different contexts, used throughout this chapter.</p>
<section id="message-context">
<h3>Message context<a class="headerlink" href="#message-context" title="Permalink to this heading"></a></h3>
<p>Delete</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>sets the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">\Deleted</span></code> flag on the message using
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">STORE</span> <span class="pre">+Flags</span> <span class="pre">\Deleted</span></code> via IMAP client</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Expunge</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>delete messages from the cyrus folder index that have the
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">\Deleted</span></code> flag set using EXPUNGE via IMAP client. With
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">expunge_mode:</span> <span class="pre">delayed</span></code>, this doesn't delete the file from
the filesystem.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Unexpunge</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>recover messages into the cyrus folder index based on filesystem
content (only possible with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">expunge_mode:</span> <span class="pre">delayed</span></code>)</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Undelete</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>remove the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">\Deleted</span></code> flag on the message using
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">STORE</span> <span class="pre">-Flags</span> <span class="pre">\Deleted</span></code> via IMAP client.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</section>
<section id="folder-context">
<h3>Folder context<a class="headerlink" href="#folder-context" title="Permalink to this heading"></a></h3>
<p>Delete</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>deletes the folder and all messages inside it using <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">DELETE</span></code>
via IMAP client. If using <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">delete_mode:</span> <span class="pre">delayed</span></code>, this renames
the folder, rather than deletes the folder, as discussed below.</p>
<p>Otherwise, the folder and messages are removed from the mailbox
list and the filesystem.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Undelete</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>rename the deleted folder back to the original location using
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">renamemailbox</span></code> in <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cyradm</span></code>.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</section>
</section>
<section id="expiring-deleted-messages-and-folders">
<h2>Expiring Deleted Messages and Folders<a class="headerlink" href="#expiring-deleted-messages-and-folders" title="Permalink to this heading"></a></h2>
<p>In the EVENTS block of cyrus.conf, you should have a line similar to the
following:</p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">delprune</span> <span class="n">cmd</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"cyr_expire -E 1 -D 7 -X 7 -a"</span> <span class="n">at</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2300</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>-D 7</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>permanently deletes from the filesystem mailboxes and folders that
were deleted more than 7 days ago.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>-E 1</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>prunes entries older than 1 day from the duplicate delivery
suppression database.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>-X 7</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>permanently deletes from the filesystem expunged messages that were
expunged more than 7 days ago.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>To use delayed deletion of mailboxes, you need the following entry in
<a class="reference internal" href="../../manpages/configs/imapd.conf.html#std-cyrusman-imapd.conf-5">imapd.conf(5)</a>:</p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">delete_mode</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">delayed</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="versionadded">
<p><span class="versionmodified added">New in version 2.3.9.</span></p>
</div>
<p>The default prefix for deleted mailboxes is <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">DELETED</span></code> but it probably
doesn't hurt to specify it in <a class="reference internal" href="../../manpages/configs/imapd.conf.html#std-cyrusman-imapd.conf-5">imapd.conf(5)</a> as well:</p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">deletedprefix</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">DELETED</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="versionadded">
<p><span class="versionmodified added">New in version 2.3.9.</span></p>
</div>
</section>
<section id="undeleting-folders">
<h2>Undeleting Folders<a class="headerlink" href="#undeleting-folders" title="Permalink to this heading"></a></h2>
<p>The following assumes that you are using the UNIX hierarchy separator.
If it's off then replace '/' in the names with '.'</p>
<p>With the previous configuration options in place, whenever a mail folder
or mailbox is deleted, it will be renamed to
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">DELETED/mailfoldername/4D5C6B7A</span></code> where <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">4D5C6B7A</span></code> is a hex-encoded
timestamp and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">DELETED</span></code> is the prefix for deleted mailboxes.</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">4D5C6B7A</span></code> can be converted back to a human-readable time using a
simple one-liner in Perl:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">$ <strong class="command">perl -le 'print scalar(localtime(hex("4D5C6B7A")));'</strong>
Thu Feb 17 00:27:38 2011</pre>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>The ACL on the deleted folder remains the same so undeleting it is
as simple as renaming it as a sub-folder of the recreated mailbox or
back to the original folder name depending on whether the mailbox
has been recreated or not. If you have to add an ACL to be able to
delete the mailbox, you may wish to remove the ACL after the
undelete has been finished.</p>
</div>
<p>The following examples assume a mailbox for <a class="reference external" href="mailto:john%40example.org">john<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> has been
deleted:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">cyradm> <strong class="command">listmailbox user/john*@example.org</strong></pre>
<p>If there's no output from the above command, the mailbox has not been
recreated since being deleted and you can rename the mailbox and any
folders back to the original name as follows. If the mailbox has been
recreated, you will probably want to rename the deleted folders into a
subfolder of the new mailbox, for example
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user/john/4D88AF31@example.org</span></code> becomes
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user/john/restored@example.org</span></code> and
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user/john/Sent/4D88AF34@example.org</span></code> becomes
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user/john/restored/Sent@example.org</span></code></p>
<p>In either case the commands are similar but with the latter option you
need to insert the extra "/restored" after the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user/john</span></code>:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">cyradm> <strong class="command">listmailbox DELETED/user/john*@example.org</strong>
<a class="reference external" href="mailto:DELETED/user/john/4D88AF31%40example.org">DELETED/user/john/4D88AF31<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> (HasNoChildren)
<a class="reference external" href="mailto:DELETED/user/john/Drafts/4D88AF34%40example.org">DELETED/user/john/Drafts/4D88AF34<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> (HasNoChildren)
<a class="reference external" href="mailto:DELETED/user/john/Sent/4D88AF34%40example.org">DELETED/user/john/Sent/4D88AF34<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> (HasNoChildren)
<a class="reference external" href="mailto:DELETED/user/john/Trash/4D88AF35%40example.org">DELETED/user/john/Trash/4D88AF35<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> (HasNoChildren)
cyradm> <strong class="command">renamemailbox DELETED/user/john/4D88AF31@example.org user/john@example.org</strong>
cyradm> <strong class="command">renamemailbox DELETED/user/john/Drafts/4D88AF34@example.org user/john/Drafts@example.org</strong>
cyradm> <strong class="command">renamemailbox DELETED/user/john/Sent/4D88AF34@example.org user/john/Sent@example.org</strong>
cyradm> <strong class="command">renamemailbox DELETED/user/john/Trash/4D88AF35@example.org user/john/Trash@example.org</strong></pre>
<p>Unfortunately there's no easy way to rename the entire mailbox back
including all the subfolders and the hex timestamp can vary between
folders in the same mailbox if it was a mailbox with some large folders.</p>
<p>This is because it's the time that particular folder was deleted, not
when the first folder was deleted.</p>
</section>
<section id="undeleting-messages-in-a-mailbox">
<h2>Undeleting messages in a mailbox<a class="headerlink" href="#undeleting-messages-in-a-mailbox" title="Permalink to this heading"></a></h2>
<p>The following examples assume you have an installation of cyrus where
there are binaries in <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">/usr/lib/cyrus-imapd/</span></code> - if not, adjust path to
suit.</p>
<p>List messages available to unexpunge:</p>
<pre class="literal-block"># <strong class="command">/usr/lib/cyrus-imapd/unexpunge -l user/john@example.org</strong></pre>
<p>Each message will give you something like the following:</p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">UID</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">11422</span>
<span class="n">Size</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">7786</span>
<span class="n">Sent</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">Mon</span> <span class="n">Mar</span> <span class="mi">10</span> <span class="mi">12</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">00</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">00</span> <span class="mi">2014</span>
<span class="n">Recv</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">Mon</span> <span class="n">Mar</span> <span class="mi">10</span> <span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">06</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">32</span> <span class="mi">2014</span>
<span class="n">Expg</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">Mon</span> <span class="n">Mar</span> <span class="mi">10</span> <span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">53</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">55</span> <span class="mi">2014</span>
<span class="n">From</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">john</span> <span class="n">doe</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">john</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">doe</span><span class="nd">@example</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">org</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="n">To</span> <span class="p">:</span> <span class="o"><</span><span class="n">info</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">cyrus</span><span class="nd">@lists</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">andrew</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">cmu</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">edu</span><span class="o">></span>
<span class="n">Cc</span> <span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">Bcc</span> <span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">Subj</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="mi">44</span><span class="p">}</span>
<span class="n">re</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">some</span> <span class="n">random</span> <span class="n">subject</span> <span class="n">of</span> <span class="n">length</span> <span class="mi">44</span> <span class="n">chars</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="s2">"</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>To unexpunge a single message:</p>
<pre class="literal-block"># <strong class="command">/usr/lib/cyrus-imapd/unexpunge -udv user/john@example.org 11422</strong>
restoring expunged messages in mailbox <a class="reference external" href="mailto:'user/john%40example.org">'user/john<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a>'
Unexpunged <a class="reference external" href="mailto:user/john%40example.org">user/john<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a>: 11422 => 11438
restored 1 expunged messages</pre>
<p>To unexpunge all the messages and mark them as undeleted as well:</p>
<pre class="literal-block"># <strong class="command">/usr/lib/cyrus-imapd/unexpunge -adv user/john@example.org</strong></pre>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>This isn't recursive. It will only restore the messages in the
folder specified.</p>
</div>
<p>To find other folders, <a class="reference internal" href="../../manpages/systemcommands/ctl_mboxlist.html#imap-reference-manpages-systemcommands-ctl-mboxlist"><span class="std std-ref">ctl_mboxlist</span></a> can be
used.</p>
<pre class="literal-block"># <strong class="command">/usr/lib/cyrus-imapd/ctl_mboxlist -d | grep example.org</strong>
example.org!user.john 0 default <a class="reference external" href="mailto:john%40example.org">john<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> lrswipkxtecda
example.org!user.john.Lists 0 default <a class="reference external" href="mailto:john%40example.org">john<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> lrswipkxtecda
example.org!user.john.Lists.cyrus 0 default <a class="reference external" href="mailto:john%40example.org">john<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> lrswipkxtecda
example.org!user.john.Deleted Messages 0 default <a class="reference external" href="mailto:john%40example.org">john<span>@</span>example<span>.</span>org</a> lrswipkxtecda</pre>
<p>Run the unexpunge command for every folder that needs to have mail
undeleted.</p>
<p>For folder names that have spaces ' ', the spaces need to be escaped
with a backslash.</p>
<pre class="literal-block"># <strong class="command">/usr/lib/cyrus-imapd/unexpunge -adv user/john/DeletedMessages@example.org</strong></pre>
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