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?

Answer 1

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).

Answer 2

Run mail in a terminal. Press d 1-. This will delete those messages.

Removing files for managing mail is like adjust the volume of your tv with a hammer. It may work, but it is not optimal and far too brutal.

Answer 3

I would argue that you rarely want to delete everything from the mail.

Therefore I would recommend setting up a crontask to run weekly to keep the last 100 lines of each user's mail

cat /var/mail/username | tail -100 > /var/mail/username

this will keep the last 100 lines

Answer 4

It depends if you have ftp access. If so, just use Nautilus to do a good deal more than any other ftp client. I also use it and Bluefish to edit pages on my websites.

There should be a Mail folder where you can view and delete any and all files.

I find it so much easier than File Manager in cPanel.