I am trying to configure thunderbird such that it uses the file /var/spool/mail/username as its inbox (that is the location that fetchmail writes to) and /home/username/Mail/ as the folder for my other mailfolders. All mailfolders are in mbox format. I need to keep this configuration so that I can continue to read mail using a text based client (e.g., mutt) when I login remotely to my desktop. As far as I can tell thunderbird cannot use /var/spool/mail/username directly as its inbox (please correct me if that's wrong). I therefore created a symlink /home/username/Mail/Inbox that points to /var/spool/mail/username. The configuration under Account Settings -> Server Settings shows: Server Type: Unix Movemail Server Name: localhost User Name: username The checkboxes "Check for new messages at startup" and "Check for new messages every 1 minutes" are checked. The Local directory under Message Storage is set to /home/username/Mail. After starting thunderbird I see all messages in the Inbox and the other mailfolders correctly. However, thunderbird is not updating the Inbox at all even though fetchmail periodically adds new messages to the /var/spool/mail/username file. Even clicking on "Get Messages" has no effect. Only quitting thunderbird and restarting it will update the Inbox. Is there a way to configure thunderbird such that it works correctly with an inbox that is updated by fetchmail? (this is with thunderbird version 31.1.0) - Martin