Re: large mbox files

Michael Slusarz via dovecot <[email protected]> Wed, 22 Apr 2026 20:32:22 -0600 (MDT)
Newsgroups gmane.mail.imap.dovecot
Message-ID <[email protected]>
> On 04/22/2026 2:18 AM MDT Marc via dovecot <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> How are messages deleted from large mbox files, are these files completely rewritten? I can't really believe that as some are bigger than the free disk space available.

The mbox is partially rewritten (whenever it is eventually sync'd; see, e.g., mbox_lazy_writes setting).

All messages after the earliest deleted message in the file are re-written and shifted "backwards" to fill the freed space.

There's a reason there is a giant red box at the top of https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.3/core/config/mailbox_formats/mbox.html

michael

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