When setting up Maildir in Debian 5.0 or Ubuntu 10.x, getting the generic mail applications working correctly can be extremely tricky. When you type “mail” in a default/stock installation, it is attempting to read mbox data and will not read your “Maildir”. Annoying, since the stock configuration for mail delivery in most mail servers is now Maildir.
First, Install the ‘mailutils’ package, not the bsd mailx package.
apt-get install mailutils
Do not touch the mailutils /etc/mail.rc file; there are some promising looking variables here like mailbox-type but these do not do what is desired. When the MAIL environment variable is set correctly mailutils will automatically detect the maildir box type.
Do not touch /etc/login.defs; the promising looking lines in here are deprecated.
Edit files in /etc/pam.d, changing the pam_mail.so lines as shown (assuming ~/Maildir as the selected location):
Tweetlogin: default login shells
session optional pam_mail.so dir=~/Maildir standardsu: set up for proper MAIL when using su; nopen does not show ‘new mail’ message
session optional pam_mail.so dir=~/Maildir nopensshd: set up MAIL properly when logging in with ssh; this line probably has a noenv by default which needs removed to set this properly
session optional pam_mail.so dir=~/Maildir standard
Many thanks, good tip after hours of searching…
For working with mutt without annoying questions you will have to add
set mbox_type=Maildir
set folder=~/Mail
in /etc/Mutrc
man….I spent 2 days trying to fix this very problem. This is exactly the second time in my life I have felt compelled to thank somebody via comment. Worked like a charm. Can’t thank you enough!
Went here from AskUbuntu, really useful guide. Thanks!