Procmail Maildir messages disappearing
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Executive summary:
In your ~/.procmailrc
MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir – is BAD, whereas
MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir/ – is good.
The slash at the end appears to tell procmail that this is a Maildir directory, rather than something else, elusive.
For a week my messages were appearing in $HOME/Maildir, but they were just in there with names like msg.zFS, instead of going into $HOME/Maildir/new and having a name like 1282544959.Q22432E173.192.0.54.2:1,T.
This meant they effectively disappeared, and I had a quiet, relaxing week.
Followed by a panicked and expletive-filled hour or so.
When I put the slash back, new messages started appearing in my Inbox again.
I was also able just to move the msg.zFS files into “new”, and they appeared fine, which was nice.
I think you should have:
MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir
and
DEFAULT=${MAILDIR}/
This specifies where your Maildir “tree” is, and that by default you want to deliver into that directory as a top level Maildir format folder.
I’m not going to touch it ever again. It made me too frightened.
OK, I admit it, perhaps I’m wrong. I’ve just checked my /etc/procmail.
MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir/
DEFAULT=$MAILDIR
Today truly is a special day.
Right, in order not to be wrong I’ve changed it to this:
MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir
DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/
and am so far suffering from no adverse affects.
I feel much more comfortable now reality has been restored.