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I've got cron jobs sending mail to my user at /var/mail. I know how to access that at the command line with the mail command. But, while a big command line fan, I do not like reading mail (even system mail) that way.

My mail client of choice is Thunderbird. Can I read /var/mail messages in Thunderbird? How?

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 and Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 (though I'm soon to upgraded to 10.04).

Mitch
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vanden
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2 Answers2

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In Ubuntu 10.04, with Thunderbird 3, the option is accomplished by:

  1. Select Edit,   Account Settings

    enter image description here

  2. Choose Account Actions,   Add other account

    enter image description here

  3. Select Unix Spool (Movemail).

    enter image description here

The UI to access this menu is slightly different in Thunderbird 2, but I didn't have it handy.

In Thunderbird 2, do the following, adapted from the Gmail FAQ:

  1. Click the Tools menu, and select Account Settings..
  2. Click the Add Account... button to launch Account Wizard.
  3. Select Movemail from the list.
Eric Carvalho
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lfaraone
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    Well, now I feel foolish. (I'd tried some time ago and hope that the option in the wizard post-dates that, else I don't know how I missed it!) Thanks. It was also necessary to run sudo chmod 01777 /var/mail to get this to work, as without, thunderbird complained it couldn't write a ~.lock file. – vanden Aug 11 '10 at 12:33
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    @vanden: You should find a lower permission that works or create a group that allows access. World writeable is dangerous. – Dennis Williamson Aug 11 '10 at 17:05
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    @Dennis: Thanks. I wasn't pleased by the permissions, either. They were suggested by the thunderbird interface. I tried removing world write access, but that prevented access to the mail. Having fetched the backlog, I've reverted. – vanden Aug 11 '10 at 20:14
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This isn't possible anymore currently, but should be when https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1802145 is achieved.

RokeJulianLockhart
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