The mail utility is used to manage domain mail service and mail names (email accounts) through CLI. By using this utility, you can perform the following tasks:

  • enabling or disabling mail service on subscriptions
  • creating and deleting mail accounts
  • editing mail account settings
  • managing mail groups associated with mail accounts

Usage 

mail <command> [<mail_name>] [
<option_1> [<param>]
[<option_2> [<param>]]
... [<option_N> [<param>]]
]

Example

The following command creates mail account JDoe@example.com, sets password mypass for it, sets the size of the email box to 50 MB, and enables the antivirus screening of both incoming and outgoing email messages for the mail account.

plesk bin mail --create JDoe@example.com -passwd mypass -mbox_quota 50M -antivirus inout

Commands

Command Parameter Description Example
--create or -c <mail@domain> Creates a mail account.

To create the mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail --create JDoe@example.com

or

plesk bin mail -c JDoe@example.com

--update or -u <mail@domain> Updates mail account settings.

To set the size of the mailbox for mail account JDoe@example.com to 50 MB:

plesk bin mail --update JDoe@example.com -mbox_quota 50M

or

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -mbox_quota 50M

--update-service <domain>

Switches mail service on or off on a subscription.

Requires the -status option.

To enable mail service on the subscription example.com:

plesk bin mail --update-service example.com -status enabled

--rename <mail@domain>

Renames a mail account.

Required option -new.

To rename mail account JDoe@example.com to roy@example.com:

plesk bin mail --rename JDoe@example.com -new roy

--list or -l   Retrieves the list of email accounts.

To see the list of email accounts:

plesk bin mail -l

--remove or -r <mail@domain> Deletes a mail account.

To delete mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail --remove JDoe@example.com

or

plesk bin mail -r JDoe@example.com

--on <domain> Enables email service on a subscription.

To enable email service on the subscription example.com:

plesk bin mail --on example.com

--off <domain> Disables email service on a subscription.

To disable email service on the subscription example.com:

plesk bin mail --off example.com

--info or -i <mail@domain> Displays information about a mail account.

To view information about mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail --info JDoe@example.com

or

plesk bin mail -i JDoe@example.com

--help or -h   Displays help on the use of the utility.

To view help on the use of the utility:

plesk bin mail --help

or

plesk bin mail -h

Options

Option Parameter Description Example
-manage-virusfilter true|false Allows or prohibits managing the antivirus settings.

To allow managing the antivirus settings for the mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -manage-virusfilter true

-manage-spamfilter true|false Allows or prohibits managing the spam filter settings.

To allow managing the spam filter settings for the mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -manage-spamfilter true

-mailbox true|false

Creates/Removes a mailbox.

Is false by default.

To create mail box for a mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -mailbox true

-passwd <password>

Sets the user password.

For additional comments, see the Note below the table.

To set the user password for the mail account JDoe@example.com to mypass:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -passwd mypass

-passwd_type plain|encrypted

Specifies the type of user password.

Ignored if no password is specified.

To set the user password to sample and password type to encrypted for the mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -passwd_type encrypted -passwd '$1$3KWwrPxB$b6GLpDPpQVsljMRgAlQZG/'

-mbox_quota <number>[B|K|M|G|T]

Sets the size of the mailbox.

Default mailbox quota for a domain to which an account belongs, if set to -1.

Is the default for the domain value by default.

To set the mailbox quota for the mail account JDoe@example.com to 50 MB:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -mbox_quota 50M

-aliases add|del:<alias>[,<alias_1>,...,<alias_N> Adds/Removes mail aliases.

To add mail aliases John and JohnDoe to mail account JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -aliases add:John,JohnDoe

-mgroups add|del:<alias>[,<alias_1>,...,<alias_N> Adds a mail account to or removes a mail account from a mail group.

To add mail account JDoe@example.com to the mail group testgroup:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -mgroups add:testgroup

-forwarding true|false

Enables/disables mail forwarding for a mail account.

If set to true, requires the -forwarding-addresses option.

Is false by default.

To enable mail forwarding JDoe@example.com to JDoe@sample.com:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -forwarding true -forwarding-addresses add:JDoe@sample.com

-forwarding-addresses add|del: <address 1>, <address 2>

Specifies e-mail addresses to which incoming mail should be forwarded.

It is required when enabling the -forwarding option for a mail account.

  
-status <enabled|disabled|admin, parent, client>

Enables/disables mail service on a subscription depending on a parameter:

  • enabled - the mail service is enabled
  • disabled - the mail service is disabled
  • admin - the mail service is disabled on behalf of the administrator
  • parent - the status of the mail service is the same as the status of the subscription (e.g., if the subscription is disabled or suspended, the mail service is disabled; when the subscription becomes activated, the mail service will become enabled).
  • client - the mail service is disabled on behalf of the customer who owns the subscription

To enable mail service on the subscription example.com:

plesk bin mail --update-service example.com -status enabled

To disable mail service on the subscription example.com on behalf of the customer:

plesk bin mail --update-service example.com -status client

In this case, if the administrator suspends the subscription and then activates it, the mail service will remain disabled.
-new <string>

Specifies new mail account name.

Used with --rename only.

To rename mail account JDoe@example.com to rroy@example.com:

./mail --rename JDoe@example.com -new rroy

-description <string> Specifies a description of an email address to be displayed in Plesk.

To create a description of the mail account JDoe@example.com:

./mail --update JDoe@example.com -description "A mailbox for JDoe"

-json   Displays the output in the JSON format. Used with the --list command.

To see the list of mail accounts in the JSON format:

./mail -l -json

-antivirus off|inout|in|out

Disables (off) or enables (in, out, inout) antivirus screening of e-mail messages for a mail name. Sets the mode of antivirus screening:

  • in - only incoming messages are screened
  • out - only outgoing messages are screened
  • inout - both incoming and outgoing messages are screened

To enable the antivirus screening for all incoming e-mail messages addressed to JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail -u JDoe@example.com -antivirus in

-cp-access true|false

Allows or prohibits logging in to the Control Panel with the specified email address as the username.

This option, if ‘true’, creates an additional user with the specified email address as the user name and gives this user access to the Control Panel.

To prohibit the corresponding existing user from logging in the the Control Panel, use ‘false’.

To create the mail account user4@ example.com and the additional user and to allow the user to log in to Control Panel with the email address as the user name and the password mypassword:

plesk bin mail --create user4@example.com -passwd mypassword -cp-access true -mailbox true

To update the existing mail account user2@ example.com and create the additional user who can log in to Control Panel with the email address as the user name and the password mypass:

plesk bin mail --update user2@example.com -passwd mypass -cp-access true -mailbox true

-outgoing-messages-mbox-limit <number>|default

Sets the limit on outgoing messages from a mailbox (per hour).

To set the Unlimited value, specify “-1”. Specify “default” to set the value specified in server-wide settings.

To set the limit on outgoing messages per hour from the email address JDoe@example.com:

plesk bin mail --update JohnDoe@example.com -outgoing-messages-mbox-limit 12

Note: Use of the -passwd option is not recommended. Passing passwords through CLI as parameters of the -passwd option may potentially compromise the system’s security as command line can be observed by other users of the system. It is more secure to pass passwords through the environment variables. You can transfer non-encrypted passwords by using environment variable PSA_PASSWORD while using single quotes to specify the empty values in the command line for the argument of the -passwd option.

Similarly, you can transfer encrypted passwords through the environment variable PSA_CRYPTED_PASSWORD while using single quotes to specify the empty values in the command line for the argument of the -passwd option.