Where email are going when Dovecot is stopped?

Dovecot stopped inadvertantly yesterday night (following a system time adjustment) so during 12 hours before I restart Dovecot. During this time, - no email where collected in outlook clients - no error was detected by outlook clients

When I restarded Dovecot, things returned to normal, but emails sent during the blackout are not collected.

Looking in webmin / Postfix server / user mailboxes, I can see on the mailboxes summary indications like mail.jeanvieille (194.46 kB in 5)

When I go to this mailbox, it is empty.

Since I installed Virtualmin I tried to understand the logic of Postfix / Dovecot for filing mail related info but unsuccessfully. The following directories seemed to be involved (certainly not comprehensive): /home/user/.usermin/mailbox/ /home/user/homes/mail/.usermin/mailbox/ /home/user/homes/Maildir/ /Maildir/ /var/mail/ /var/spool/postfix/

Nowhere at these places I could find anything looking queued messages.

Thanks for help

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Comments

Dovecot is only used by clients like Outlook to download email - if it is down, email is still delivered to the system, and can be picked up when Dovecot is restarted.

Postfix actually accepts email from other systems. If it is down, sending systems will queue up email and re-send it when Postfix comes back up.

Thank you for clarification. Other questions above: - is my install sound bsed on the mail related directories /home/user/.usermin/mailbox/ /home/user/homes/mail/.usermin/mailbox/ /home/user/homes/Maildir/ /Maildir/ /var/mail/ /var/spool/postfix/

  • Why empty mailboxes indicate content in Virtualmin "Looking in webmin / Postfix server / user mailboxes, I can see on the mailboxes summary indications like mail.jeanvieille (194.46 kB in 5) - When I go to this mailbox, it is empty"

Thank you

A default Virtualmin install will setup mail folders and delivery properly, and in general you don't need to change them..

As for that message about empty mailboxes having a size, make sure that there aren't messages in one of the user's other folders. Also, even an empty mailbox still takes up some disk space.