Want to just get going ? Try: qmqtool -l or qmqtool -s Q. Using qmqtool -s, why does the first three values not add up to the total value on the fourth line? A. One or more messages may be in the process of being queued and we might not yet know the destination. A. Queue corruption - try qmqtool -c or qmqtool -r. Q. Why arent messages that I just expired going away ? A. qmail-queue has to realize the change. it will normally do this on it's own, but if you're impatient you can force the queue to run by: /var/qmail/bin/qmail-tcpok svc -a /service/qmail-send/ A. If you have already forced qmail to re-run the queue, you may be running into a scenario where qmail-remote is caching an unresponsive SMTP server, and messages after the first are kept in the queue to be tried later. There's no solution to this problem, besides to simply delete the messages instead of expire. Q. Do I really have to restart qmail-send after using -d ? A. You should. qmail doesnt know you've removed the message from the queue, and will keep trying to send it. Each time it tries, you'll see a complaint in your log file. Q. What is the difference between 'expiring' and 'deleting' messages? A. qmail remembers what messages are in it's queue. If you tinker with the queue manually (via deleting a message), you will have to restart qmail-send. By simply expiring the message, you trick qmail into thinking the message has been in the queue too long and qmail gracefully removes the message for you. Q. How can I list all messages that have the subject of "Free Pupil Enlargment" ? A. qmqtool -f '^Subject: Free Pupil Enlargment' will do a pretty good job; since qmqtool's -f argument searches the entire message, this could list an incorrect message if the string 'Subject: Free Pupil Enlargment' is found in the body of the email and not in the header. A. qmqtool -f '/^subject: free pupil enlargment/i' will do pretty much the same, except search case-insensitive. Q. How can I delete all messages with a subject of "Pupil Enlargment"? A. qmqtool -d -f '^Subject: Pupil Enlargment!'` restart qmail-send. Q. How can I show how many queued messages a host has sent? A. If you've got a plain-vanilla qmail installation, try: qmqtool -i If you've got frontend servers that relay mail to backend servers, qmqtool -i -n 2 You can also try qmqtool -i -V Q. How can I keep my queue clean of soon-to-be double bounces? A. Enter the following single line into root's crontab (adjust for syntax and path differences, of course): 17,47 * * * * qmqtool -e -o 2 -f 'invoked for bounce|^Subject: failure notice' >/dev/null 2>&1 This is not 100% accurate; some legitimate bounce messages will be deleted. Q. How can I delete all messages from my remote and local queue ? A. qmqtool -d -f . restart qmail-send. Q. How can I delete multiple messages at a time ? A. qmqtool -d 1234,5678 Q. How can I find out who most of my remotely queued messages are destined for? A. qmqtool -R | awk '/Recipient:/ { print $3 }' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n (your awk, sort, and uniq syntax may differ) Q. How can I list messages with a subject of "Failure Notice" that are 18+ hours old ? A. qmqtool -o 18 -f '^Subject: Failure Notice' Q. How can I expire messages with a subject of "Failure Notice" that are have been queued for 18+ hours ? A. qmqtool -e -o 18 -f '^Subject: Failure Notice' Q. How can I do the previous question, but watch as it goes ? A. use -V: qmqtool -V -e -o 18 -f '^Subject: Failure Notice' Q. How can I make a list of just queued bounce messages ? A. qmqtool -f 'invoked for bounce' will do a good job. Q. What is a "LWQ installation" ? A. I (and the general qmail community) recommend installing qmail as per http://www.lifewithqmail.org/ Q. How can I move qmail's queue to a different machine? A. Use the backup and restore feature: 1. On old machine: #stop qmail-send and qmail-smtpd(s) qmqtool -Bb cd /var/qmail tar zcf queue.tgz queue.backup/ #copy or move queue.tgz to the new machine 2. On new machine: cd /var/qmail tar zxf queue.tgz #stop qmail-send and qmail-smtpd(s) qmqtool -Br #start qmail-send Q. How can I view message number 12345 ? A. qmqtool -v 12345 Q. How can I view the whole message 12345, instead of the first 100 lines? A. qmqtool -wv 12345