How to remove frozen mails exim

The frustration of frozen emails in Exim!

Removing frozen emails from Exim can be a bit of a challenge, but I'll guide you through the process. Before we begin, please note that you should only attempt to remove frozen emails if you're comfortable with editing configuration files and running commands as the Exim user.

Step 1: Identify the frozen email

To find the frozen email, you'll need to check the Exim log files. The log files are usually located in /var/log/exim/mainlog or /var/log/exim4/mainlog (depending on your Exim version and Linux distribution).

Use a text editor or a log viewer to search for lines containing the string "freeze" or "timeout". This will help you identify the frozen email.

Step 2: Check the Exim configuration

Exim's configuration file is usually located at /etc/exim.conf or /etc/exim4/exim.conf (again, depending on your Exim version and Linux distribution).

Look for the timeout and freeze settings in the configuration file. These settings control how long Exim waits for a delivery to complete before considering it frozen.

Step 3: Remove the frozen email

To remove the frozen email, you'll need to use the Exim command-line tool, exim. You can use the following command to remove the frozen email:

exim -Mrm <message_id>

Replace <message_id> with the actual message ID of the frozen email. You can find the message ID in the Exim log file or by using the exim -bpi command, which shows the current status of all messages in the queue.

Step 4: Restart Exim

After removing the frozen email, restart Exim to ensure that the changes take effect:

service exim restart

Additional tips

• If you're using a Linux distribution with systemd, you can use the systemctl command to restart Exim: systemctl restart exim
• If you're using a Linux distribution with init.d, you can use the service command to restart Exim: service exim restart
• If you're still experiencing issues with frozen emails, you may need to adjust the timeout and freeze settings in your Exim configuration file.
• Consider implementing a cron job to periodically clean up frozen emails to prevent them from accumulating.

Remember to exercise caution when editing configuration files and running commands as the Exim user. If you're unsure about any of these steps, consider consulting the Exim documentation or seeking help from a system administrator.