Re: Mail read in system mailbox becomes unread in user mbox

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Hi Sam,

> Suppose I have received new emails in the system mailbox
> (e.g. /var/spool/mail/theuser), and I read those new emails using
> `mailx`. When I quit mailx using `q`, the read emails will be moved to
> ~/mbox. However, when I open ~/mbox using `mailx -f`, the emails that I
> have just read in the system mailbox are marked as unread!
> 
> I think it is surprising that the mail I have read are marked as unread
> when they are moved to my ~/mbox. I don't think the BSDs' mailx have
> this behavior. Is this a bug in GNU mailutils?

POSIX standard doesn't specify that the message state should be
preserved when saving the message to another mailbox.  If I read it
correctly, it is left to the implementation to decide.  That being
said, I agree that preserving the message state is logical and
consistent with user's expectations.  I'll see if it can be
implemented.

Regards,
Sergey