[clug] Re: Mysterious mbox behaviour

[Pearl Louis]

Hi!

Thanks to all the replies about mbox and kmail.

Just to reply to all messages in one go...

>I haven't used kmail but in many mail clients when you delete a message it 
>just marks it as deleted.  (Usually a header like Status: D or some such).  
>IT is only when you "Compact" or "expunge" the mailbox that deleted messages 
>are really deleted.  So you need to find out what command kmail uses for 
>that.

As I mention in my original message, I always empty the trash after deleting 
more than a few messages (I've got into this habit because my system has 
never been too stable and I noticed if I didn't empty the trash and the 
system crashed, the deleted messages would be there again after I rebooted) 
and kmail automatically compacts the folders whenever I exit.  In fact I've 
done it several times manually to the mailbox in question (right click, 
compact).  So the non-complete deletion of the messages are definitely *not* 
due to not compacting the mailboxes.   I think that something must be going 
wrong during the compacting process and it's simply not well, compacting.  I 
wouldn't have even noticed it if it wasn't for the fact that I deleted half 
of the messages in it (over a period of several months, so lots of regular 
compacting) and noticed the size of the mailbox hadn't changed at all.  Every 
other sign seemed to indicate that it had been properly deleted.

>Though it sounds like kmail might be doing something like leaving stuff
>in /var/spool/mail/yourname and using it to create the mbox. What happens
>if you nuke your mail spool? Maybe run kmail through truss to see what
>files it is opening? Maybe use mutt instead?

I don't think I use /var/spool/mail as I just download the mail from the ANU 
POP3 server.  That doesn't go through /var/spool/mail does it?

Well I don't think I really want to use mutt as I like GUI programs.  I think 
I might switch to Evolution or Thunderbird.  I know Thunderbird is still 
what, at 0.2?  But it can't have any worse bugs than this, unless it actually 
decides to trash the mailbox entirely...

Pearl