Is there an entry for maillog in /etc/logrotate.d/syslog ? If not, here's what's in mine: /var/log/maillog { postrotate /bin/kill -HUP `cat /var/run/syslogd.pid 2> /dev/null` 2> /dev/null || true endscript } This would then use the default rotate options defined in /etc/logrotate.conf, such as: weekly rotate 5 errors root create compress