[TriLUG] I need to fix a corrupted mailspool (mbox)

[Tanner Lovelace]

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:15:46 -0400, Errol Casey <errol at nouce.net> wrote:
> I have a 300+ MB spool file normal unix mail; but it was created via
> getmail (top pop mail) and the headers got changed such that the From:
> line was not the
> first line, of each message. I thought I could fix it by rewriting the
> file to remove all the headers before From:, and re-save the spool. But
> evidently, I must not have the correct carriage-return/line feed between
> messages, or other lines because the 300 MB spool file is still un-
> readable via mutt or qpopper due to issues with the format.

Note, btw, that the first line of each message in an mbox format
mailbox isn't "From: " but instead "From ". If you think that's confusing, 
you're not alone! :-)  Basically, as far as I can tell, mbox starts each 
message with a "From " with no colon which contains the envelope 
sender, which may or may not be different from the "From: " (with a colon)
field in the mail headers.  This From also contains a datestamp after the
envelop sender.  Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tanner