Mail going to /var/spool/mail/user and not to Thunderbird
 

Hi I am trying to get Thunderbird working on SuSE 9.1
It downloads mail on the odd occasion but some of the time mail is feed straight into /var/spool/mail/steve (my user name) as text or mostly just deleted from the server. Thunderbird account settings are to leave mail on server until moved from inbox or deleted. Yast mail transfer is set to deliver through procmail. Why is the mail disappearing? How can I get it to work properly?
Thanks in advance
Linux Newbie
Steve :?:

It's common to have users' mailboxes in /var/spool/mail. If this is the case for SuSE, then receiving your mail in /var/spool/mail/steve is normal. For you to view your mail with Thunderbird, you have to be running a pop3 or imap server and configure Thunderbird accordingly. As to where your mail disappears sometimes, perhaps the answer is either in the global procmail config file /etc/procmailrc or in the local one $HOME/.procmailrc.

/etc/procmailrc & $home/.procmailrc don't Exist
 

I looked for /etc/procmailrc and $home/.procmailrc but niether exist. I looked for a sample but can't find one - should I create them? Do I need them? If I need them what should they contain?
Thanks for your help
Steve :-)

A procmailrc file can contains recipes for sorting mail. For example, you might want mail from LinuxQuestions.org to go to a file other than your usual mailbox. You don't need to have an rc file, and if you don't, mail will just go to the "default" location, something like /var/spool/mail/username. Read the man pages for procmailrc and procmailex to learn more.

Check also your mail log to see about disappearing mail. It should be in /var/log/maillog, or something similar.

All is well!
 

Thanks for your help guys.
You pointed me in the right direction - a little tweaking of Thunderbird and fetchmail and all is working again.
I am very grateful for your help! B)