Display number of messages in linux mail queue

linux email queue

119,165

Solution 1

If you just want to know the number of messages sitting in the deferred queue, then the following should get you a quick answer:

find /var/spool/postfix/deferred -type f | wc -l

There are three other queues. See http://www.porcupine.org/postfix/queueing.html for details.

Solution 2

You could filter the output and display only the last line:

mailq | tail -n 1

Solution 3

As a related matter, you can also obtain the number of messages in your mailbox stored in mbox format, by modifying Brian Showalter's suggestion using the command "mail --headers." For example, I have this line in my .bashrc file:

if [ -s /var/mail/$(whoami) ] ; then echo -e "\nYou have $(ls -s -h /var/mail/$(whoami) | cut -d" " -f 1) of mail.  Number of messages: $(mail --file /var/mail/$(whoami) --headers | wc -l) ($(mail --file /var/mail/$(whoami) --headers | sed '/^>* *[0-9]/d' | wc -l) unread)" ; fi

Solution 4

This is

find /var/spool/postfix/deferred -type f | wc -l

good idea, but it doesn't work if my Zabbix-Agent isn't run as a root. So I used this

NUM=`mailq | grep -E "Requests" | awk '{print $5}'`; if [ -z "$NUM" ]; then echo "0"; else echo $NUM; fi

for my own UserParameter.

View more solutions

119,165

dmp

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

dmp almost 2 years

Is there a simple command to find out the current number of messages in the linux mail queue? mailq dumps out a verbose list, but it's not convenient for a quick overview.

I'm using Ubuntu and postfix.
- user1364702 almost 14 years
  
  What mail transfer agent are you using?
- Prix almost 14 years
  
  like bart said, tell us what MTA youre using so we can give you a more specific and correct approch.
- dmp almost 14 years
  
  sendmail, sorry.
- user1364702 almost 14 years
  
  Sure it's sendmail, not postfix? Just making sure...
- dmp almost 14 years
  
  good catch, its postfix not sendmail.
dmp almost 14 years

That's a nice idea, but the queue is massive, so it take's a long time to return a result. Anything faster..?
user1364702 almost 14 years

If the queue is really really massive, there may be another issue (unless you're an ISP or mail hosting service). You shouldn't have a backup so huge that you have to wait a few minutes for these results...?
dmp almost 14 years

I'm sure there is another issue, but that'll come in another question ;)
Jeroen Wiert Pluimers almost 12 years

in my case it was this: find /var/spool/mqueue -type f | wc -l and this find /var/spool/mqueue-rx -type f | wc -l as I have two queues and don't use postfix.
Scottie H almost 4 years

Just what I was looking for. Thanks!