This config was built from Dovecot 2.1-rc3. Since the initial version more RCs have come as well as 2.1 final release, but no changes have affected what this config does. Dovecot now uses a nice modular configuration, where the default /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf merely includes a local.conf and each file in a conf.d/ subdirectory (both are in the same directory). The conf.d files are loaded in alphabetic order. The sample configuration provided is very easy to work with; merely copy those files to your /etc/dovecot directory and edit the conf.d files you need. Nothing needs to be renamed. For sqlite, we also need a file to tell Dovecot where to find the database, and how to query it. That file is /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext . Dovecot configuration example files are well-commented. In general I have removed those comments, because the goal here is not to recreate Dovecot documentation, it is merely to show one configuration example, as simply as possible. Some comments relevant to the example have been retained. All of my comments have three "###" octothorpes (not always on each line, but at least in the first line of a block.)