Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : How to quickly delete all emails older than dd.mm.yyyy

[motyl]

Hi gurus,

My Outlook is going mad and decided to download all emails from server again (10400 emails!!) which would create extreme mess in my emails.

Is there any way how to quickly delete emails older than some date specified? I tried to do it manually through Horde & Squirel webmails but that would take me a week... It's too slow because Inbox file has 36MB.

Any ideas? I have full root access through SSH.

Thanks a million,
motyl

[linux-tech]

Short answer? No

Best answer? Don't check "leave mail on server", or if you DO check this, make sure that the option for "remove from server when mail is deleted" is checked.

Now, what you CAN do is move the inbox to something, say, inbox.old and restart your email server. The next mail that comes to you should automatically create a new inbox.

There's really no way to delete mail like you're requesting here, unfortunately.

[S2 Web Design]

You can install mutt if it's not installed already and use it to delete messages older than a specified date. Assuming you have mutt setup to use the correct inbox, use the `D` command in mutt to delete messages by regular expression. When prompted to delete messages, use `~d >60d` (without quotes) for example to delete messages older than 60 days. You can use d for days, m for month, w for week, or y for years in the expression. Once this is done, simply quit mutt and save/purge.

If you're using the maildir format for your mail repository isntead of the standard mailbox/inbox format, you can of course manipulate the find command and delete messages that way since each message has it's own file.

[andy18]

if u r using cpanel assuming, login to the cpanel > manage email account > there is an option just beside the email accout call "Aging" , set this and it will auto purge the emails for you.