Downloading from a server (POP3)

Unless you're using IMAP to access your email (see 4.3.2), mutt expects to find your mail waiting for you on your system at the location /var/spool/mail/USERNAME. That is, if your log-in name on your system is randymon, mutt expects to find a text file with appropriate permissions (that is, user can read and write) at /var/spool/mail/randymon. If that file doesn't exist, root will have to create it for you. Remember, it's a file, not a directory, so you can create it with the ``touch'' command and then set the permissions using ``chmod.'' Remember, your mail gets transported from your ISP's server to the spool via some other mechanism, probably the program ``fetchmail,'' (see section 4.5), which you'll configure separately.

First, tell mutt where to find your mail system's spool file and anywhere else it should expect to find new mail accumulating. Below are two examples: the spool file, and a folder in my home directory.

# Mailbox Setup
mailboxes  /var/spool/mail/randymon /home/randymon/Mail/