Hi all,
I wish to keep mails that are 0 to 2 months old on my server,then let my server auto delete them when they get older than two months,with Qmail.
Any ideas?

Do you use Maildir or mailbox format?

Although I don't do what you are tryinng to do, I run a cron job that goes and "reads" all the messages in my spam folder, cleans a backup folder (created with maildrop), etc.

I'm sure you could do the same, running find, or similar to delete based on age.


Will only work with Maildir thoug I would think

Hi Billymayday,
I use maildir.Can you give me the sample cronjob you use?

#!/bin/bash
shopt -s nullglob

cd ~/Maildir/.Backup/new

# move files in new to cur - this happens when you view folder

if [ $( ls | wc -l ) -gt 0 ]
then cp * ../cur; rm *;
fi

cd ~/Maildir/.Backup/cur

# Clean down to 25 messages

if [ $( ls | wc -l ) -gt 25 ];
then rm $(ls -t | sed -e 1,25d);
fi

# It also seems that filesnames of messages have ":2," added when folder viewed

for filename in *[0-9] ;do

newfile=$(echo $filename ":2," | tr -d " ")
mv $filename $newfile

done

# Read messages have a capital S on the end (I guess for Seen)

for filename in *"," ;do

newfile=$(echo $filename "S" | tr -d " ")
mv $filename $newfile

done

This is my backup cleaner.

Rgds

Thanks.Though i'm not good with shell scripting i'll see what i can do.

Hi,
I wrote a simple script like this

#!/bin/sh
#find will look for mails last accessed two months and 5 days ago and delete them.

find /var/maildir -atime 65 -execdir rm -f {} /;

#end of script

But I was thinking,what if some guy after haven accessed the mail,checks it again say two days before the cronjob is executed,that mail will not be deleted.
Does anyone know of a way to help with this problem?

Run the cron job every day (or did I totally miss the poit)?

run the cron say every 2weeks!

Sorry, I did miss the point. Can you restate the problem please?

The problem is,the "-atime n" option to find looks for files last accessed n*24hrs.Now what if someone goes back to a mail that is already 2months old,say two days from the cronjob,it means the mail will not be deleted.Though it is two months old.
Hope you understand now?

Try

find /var/maildir -atime +65 -execdir rm -f {} /;

have a look at man find regarding use of "+"

btw - take a copy first in case you stuff it up (I know I would)

Hi Billy,
Thanks for that idea.But my problem still remain unsolved.Remember "atime n" is looking for last accessed files.We're assuming that when a mail is read,that is the last accessed time,and so our little script will find it and delete it.What if,that mail is re-read after say a month from the day it was first read?Wouldn't the time counter be reset for that mail?Instead for the mail to be a month old,it will be just a day old!
I don't know if you get me?

Try mtime instead - I don't imagine reading the file modifies it

That may be it.I understand an unread mail has a tag which is changed when the mail is read.That should be the modify time.Even if the mail is re-read,the tag still remains as read.
Thanx.