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Recover accidentally deleted data

So you deleted a mailbox and have no backups, he?

If you noticed your mistake within a few hours, you can probably recover the users data.

SOGo

We automatically create daily backups (24h interval starting from running up -d) in /var/lib/docker/volumes/mailcowdockerized_sogo-userdata-backup-vol-1/_data/.

Make sure the user you want to restore exists in your mailcow. Re-create them if they are missing.

Copy the file named after the user you want to restore to __MAILCOW_DIRECTORY__/data/conf/sogo.

  1. Copy the backup: cp /var/lib/docker/volumes/mailcowdockerized_sogo-userdata-backup-vol-1/_data/restoreme@example.org __MAILCOW_DIRECTORY__/data/conf/sogo

  2. Run the following command:

    docker compose exec -u sogo sogo-mailcow sogo-tool restore -F ALL /etc/sogo restoreme@example.org

    docker-compose exec -u sogo sogo-mailcow sogo-tool restore -F ALL /etc/sogo restoreme@example.org

    Run sogo-tool without parameters to check for possible restore options.

  3. Delete the copied backup by running rm __MAILCOW_DIRECTORY__/data/conf/sogo

  4. Restart SOGo and Memcached: 

docker compose restart sogo-mailcow memcached-mailcow

docker-compose restart sogo-mailcow memcached-mailcow

Mail

In case of an accidental deletion of a mailbox, you will be able to recover for (by default) 5 days. This depends on the MAILDIR_GC_TIME parameter in mailcow.conf.

A deleted mailbox is copied in its encrypted form to /var/lib/docker/volumes/mailcowdockerized_vmail-vol-1/_data/_garbage.

The folder inside _garbage follows the structure [timestamp]_[domain_sanitized][user_sanitized], for example 1629109708_exampleorgtest in case of test@example.org deleted on 1629109708.

To restore make sure you are actually restoring to the same mailcow it was deleted from or you use the same encryption keys in crypt-vol-1.

Make sure the user you want to restore exists in your mailcow. Re-create them if they are missing.

Copy the folders from /var/lib/docker/volumes/mailcowdockerized_vmail-vol-1/_data/_garbage/[timestamp]_[domain_sanitized][user_sanitized] back to /var/lib/docker/volumes/mailcowdockerized_vmail-vol-1/_data/[domain]/[user] and resync the folder and recalc the quota:

docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm force-resync -u restoreme@example.net '*'
docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm quota recalc -u restoreme@example.net

docker-compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm force-resync -u restoreme@example.net '*'
docker-compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm quota recalc -u restoreme@example.net