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Ok, title is a little confusing, I admit :). Let me try to explain. When you have stuffed exim mail queue and you want to remove all messages from specific domain only, sometimes email address that you want to use as key for your parsing is in second line. So, classic exim -bp | grep <searchstring> | awk {‘print $3’} | xargs exim -Mrm is not very useful in this case because it won’t return message ID. Grep with -B flag is what you need in this case. -B will show line before your “key” string also – message ID in this case. You can check how to on example below.

• Check exim mail queue

[root@mailserver ~]# exim -bp

46h   58K 1b59PU-000J6d-1U <something@domain.com>
          info@mydomain.si

44h   11K 1b5Bj4-000MJC-GF <johndoe@iasoiasd.in>
          info@mydomain.si

44h   16K 1b5BjQ-000MNC-0M <jimi.hendrix@guitar.com>
          peter@olderdomain.org

43h  9.0K 1b5Bvp-000P1c-6s <purchase@domainname.net>
          info@mydomain.si

43h   11K 1b5BzX-000PmA-S5 <GallowayIla96@asgasfasgas.com>
          info@mydomain.si

41h   59K 1b5Dhb-000I5h-8E <bloop@auhuiejnapob.net>
          info@mydomain.si

27h   17K 1b5RNl-000OFW-Tn <sasa@bjkoapojfoaubopaw.si>
          info@mydomain.si

22h   78K 1b5W42-000Nna-Jn <johndoe@gmail.com>
          anothermail@foo.com

22h   11K 1b5W8b-000Oes-Fb <ramones@band.com>
          info@mydomain.si

22h  250K 1b5WHr-0000Om-Oa <fuckface@guilttrip.com>
          joasd@aasdfasf.si

20h   12K 1b5YEZ-000MF7-Jq <mrinsignificant@mobile.cn>
          test@anotherdomain.net

19h  9.1K 1b5YK6-000NPV-1m <fetasir@cheese.com>
          info@mydomain.si

19h   12K 1b5YXM-000Ppg-Qd <asfaeaw@asdasa.com.br>
          info@mydomain.si

19h   11K 1b5Yeq-0001JN-9a <geaafwawfaef@gesawad.vn>
          blabla@mojadomena.si
.
.
.

• We want to delete all messages that contains string info@mydomain.si and are in second line.

[root@mailserver ~]# exim -bp | awk {'print $1,$3'} | grep -B1 mydomain | awk {'print $2'} | xargs exim -Mrm

Message 1b59PU-000J6d-1U has been removed
Message 1b5Bj4-000MJC-GF has been removed
Message 1b5Bvp-000P1c-6s has been removed
Message 1b5BzX-000PmA-S5 has been removed
Message 1b5Dhb-000I5h-8E has been removed
Message 1b5RNl-000OFW-Tn has been removed
Message 1b5W8b-000Oes-Fb has been removed
Message 1b5W42-000Nna-Jn has been removed
Message 1b5W8b-000Oes-Fb has been removed
Message 1b5YK6-000NPV-1m has been removed
Message 1b5YEZ-000MF7-Jq has been removed
Message 1b5YK6-000NPV-1m has been removed
.
.
.