where stores mutt the status of messages, i.e. "r", "N", etc. ?

[Ulrich Lauther]

In the mailbox /var/mail/<user> new messages are appended, but mutt displays the newest messages first.
Makes sense.

Probably because my mailbox grew to large, this mechanism failed: suddenly I saw very old messages first.
To repair this I edited the mailbox (using vi) and deleted old messages.
Now it works again, but the status flags are funny: all messages are flagged as "old".
Also, I see files BOGUS.<user>.nnnn under /var/mail which are in mailbox format.

How can I fix the flags and what to do with the BOGUS-files?

Best,

  ulrich