How to change the mail queue lifetime in Postfix on a Plesk server

Updated April 11, 2023 14:34

kb: how-to Plesk for Linux ABT: Group B

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In some cases, mail gets stuck for 5 days filling up the mail queue. How to change the mail queue lifetime in Postfix on a Plesk server?

By default, Postfix will keep trying to deliver mail for 5 days. The number of days is defined by the Postfix maximal_queue_lifetime parameter.

To change this limit:

Connect to a server via SSH.
Run the command below specifying the number of days. In this example, we are setting the limit to 1 day:

# postconf -e 'maximal_queue_lifetime = 1d'

Note: Specify 0 when mail delivery should be tried only once.
Verify the changes:

# postconf | grep maximal_queue_lifetime
maximal_queue_lifetime = 1d

Note: Postfix service restart is not required.