Inbox folder doesn't work anymore

Russell L. Harris rlharris at oplink.net
Wed May 8 00:15:40 UTC 2019


On Tue, May 07, 2019 at 08:00:56PM -0300, Luciano ES wrote:
>I don't have any 'mailboxes' command in my .muttrc file. Not at all.
>I have this:
>
>set spoolfile="$HOME/Mail/inbox"
>
>I have a few folder-hooks though, and they all point to subdirectories
>of $HOME/Mail/inbox.

Your problem may be that your system is running on defaults of which
you are unaware, and that you need to use ".muttrc" to specify a few
locations.  

As I said, if you do not use "folder" to specify a base for your mail
repository, Mutt assumes the base is $HOME/Mail.

You need to read the Mutt manual (and possibly other sources) to
familiarize yourself with the typical usage of the following
directories, all of which, in your case, are in Mail: "mbox",
"postponed", "record", "spoolfile", "tmpdir".  Each has an intended
use.  And the path of each should specified with a "mailboxes" command.

In particular, "spoolfile" no longer serves the purpose it once did.
In modern Linux systems the Mail Transfer Agent (Exim4) commonly
delivers system-level messages to "spoolfile"; and some system
utilities expect the format of "spoolfile" to be Mbox rather than
Maildir.

I suggest that you add to ".muttrc" the line "mailboxes
$HOME/Mail/inbox" and specify "inbox" as "Maildir".

Also, if the Mutt configuration variable "move" is true, Mutt
automatically transfers a message from "spoolfile" to the location
specified by the Mutt configuration variable "mbox" once the message
has been read; this reduces clutter in "spoolfile".  Regrettably, Mutt
uses for this location variable the same name used for the format
"mbox"; this is a source of confusion.


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