Question: I'm using Exim mail server under CentOS Linux. How do I remove all messages from the Exim mail queue using a shell prompt?
Answer: Exim is a mail transfer agent (MTA) used on Unix-like operating systems. It aims to be a general and flexible mailer with extensive facilities for checking incoming e-mail.
To print a list of the messages in the queue, enter:
# exim -bp
To remove a message from the queue, enter:
# exim -Mrm {message-id}
To remove all messages from the queue, enter:
# exim -bp | awk '/^ *[0-9]+[mhd]/{print "exim -Mrm " $3}' | bash
Dallas Marlow, suggested following clean command:
# exim -bp | exiqgrep -i | xargs exim -Mrm
Further readings:
- man pages awk, exim
- Exim documentation
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- Last Updated: 11-19-08
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello,
the most secure thing (and the most ugly one) you can do is delete all files from EXIM input folder (/var/spool/exim/input). The folder that uses exim to keep the mail queue .
EXIM creates 2 files for email – 1 for the headers part and another for the message body. Erasing everything from this folder must erase the queue.
EXIM names the files with the msg_id an put -H or -D part on the end of filename – H for headers an -D for body file
The solution of Vivek is good, but for less traffic, otherwise if you manage lots of emails I recommend you to rm the files.
One of my cases:
[root@mta1 ~]# exim -bpcO/p:
… and i afraid i cannot use this solution.
Regards
Ol.
Bulgaria
Another solution is put this router in the EXIM configure and run some queue runners – exim -qff&
If you place the router in first place he will delete all messages older than X seconds. 1800 = 30 min.
router_mailxpire:
driver = redirect condition = ${if >= {$message_age}{1800}} data = /dev/null file_transport = address_file no_more… you are welcome :)
Cheers
Oldzhay,
Thanks for sharing your solution!
this is a much cleaner/safer way to do the same thing (using the tools provided by all modern exim installations)
exim -bp | exiqgrep -i | xargs exim -Mrm
exim -bp # this prints the contents of the mail queue
exiqgrep # extracts the id from each mail
xargs exim -Mrm # removes the mail
exiqgrep is pretty flexible (for instance if you wanted to only extract the frozen email id’s used exiqgrep -iz ), exipick is an extension of exiqgrep that can help a bit too.
Dallas,
The faq has been updated with your command. Thanks for sharing with us!
Have you been remove about 1200821 queue ?
it wont work with “exim -bp | exiqgrep -i | xargs exim -Mrm” ( I tried to wait until 24hours, it get my swap until 0 free)
so it must use script to remove the queue, in my case:
-list all directory in ‘input’ folder:
cd /var/spool/exim/input ; ls >> /tmp/folder
-create a script name “removeall”
echo “for b in `ls` ; do rm -f $b ; done” >> /tmp/removeall ; chmod 700 /tmp/removeall
- go to input folder and exec command
for a in `cat /tmp/folder` ; do cd $a ; /tmp/removeall ; cd .. ; done
and it work great :)
Thanks Oldzhay for you router to delete messages older than x seconds, I will definately test & apply in my setup.
Well, I remove all the messages in the queue but still am not able to send any mail :(
“Well, I remove all the messages in the queue but still am not able to send any mail”
…this is another problem. Can you post some log here pls, and we can look for a solution