How do I delete everything in /var/mail/username from the command line?

Question

As a result of a long-running cron job, I have over 1,000 messages in my user's mailbox. What's the easiest way to delete them?

James Henstridge · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-21 15:49:35Z

If you want to delete all the messages, you can simply truncate the mailbox file for a user with the following command:

> /var/mail/username

(the greater than sign is not a prompt: you are in effect redirecting the output of nothing to the file, which will truncate it).

kv1dr · Answer 2 · 2011-06-21 15:03:54Z

up vote 0 down vote

Did you try sudo rm -rf /var/mail/username/*? WARNING! ALL FILES AND FOLDERS IN FOLDER /VAR/MAIIL/USERNAME/ WILL BE PERMANENTLY DELETED

answered Jun 21 '11 at 15:03

kv1dr
801221

	Thanks, but that doesn't seem to work. According to ls, "username" is a folder, rather a file... – Greg Jun 21 '11 at 15:19
	Er, what I said backwards. A mail file, not a folder. – Greg Jun 21 '11 at 16:05
	oh, I didn't know. – kv1dr Jun 21 '11 at 17:39

2 Answers