Apple mail not cleaning up POP3 server?

Question

I use Apple Mail (in POP3 mode) and Spamsieve, and it appearsthat it never removes junk mail and/or moved mail from my mail server (a Unix hosted domain). I have "delete permanently on move from inbox" and "delete permanently when deleted in Mail" set properly.
How do I know? If I read/move/delete all mail in my inbox, and then manually delete all the mail in the junk mail folder, then use something like Thunderbird in IMAP mode, I found that my /var/mail/sparker was 95+Mb full of garbage from the previous year (or much more)
Interestingly, if I have message that lands in my inbox (no rules processing) and I manually delete them, they get removed properly from the /var/mail/sparker file. If Rules or SpamSieve move them, they never get deleted properly.
So... For those of you with external hosts for your mail, go check your /var/mail/<userid> file. I'd bet they're huge.....
I've got to the point where I read and process all my mail using AppleMail, then quit, launch thunderbird, and delete everything manually. Seems ridiculous, but that's what I'm doing now.
I like SpamSieve enough (with 99.7% accuracy) that I'd prefer not to switch to Thunderbird exclusively. But if I have to keep processing mail using BOTH tools, then I'm going to have to switch.
Steve

Answer 1

I have [...] "delete permanently when deleted in
Mail"
set properly.
Considering that no such setting exists in Mail, I
find this hard to believe.
Wow... Sorry I upset you. I was asking this question from another machine, and hoped people would be intuit that I really meant "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message". I was obviously wrong that you could intuit that I just got the exact string setting incorrectly.
I found that my /var/mail/sparker was 95+Mb
full of garbage from the previous year (or much
more)
What does /var/mail have to do with Apple
Mail?
On my web host that hosts my domain, all their mail pools in /var/mail/<user> until I hook up my Powerbook and download it as POP3 mail. If I don't go get it, it accumulates in this file. It's standard Unix type mail.
Interestingly, if I have message that lands in my
inbox
(no rules processing) and I manually delete them,
they
get removed properly from the /var/mail/sparker
file.
That's interesting, indeed. But even more interesting
is that I manage 8 POP accounts in Mail (5 different
"external hosts"), and my /var/mail
directory is always empty. I don't even have a
/var/mail/username file...
I'm sorry to hear that. I do have a /var/mail/<username> where all my mail accumulates. It's on a FreeBSD server. It does exist, as does a mail file for everybody else on that host.
So... For those of you with external hosts for
your
mail, go check your /var/mail/<userid> file. I'd
bet
they're huge.....
I bet they aren't. Actually, I bet no such file
exists at all in most cases...
I can generate a listing here, but that wouldn't solve this problem.
I'm sorry that I upset you by asking this question. I've used many email clients on Mac, Windows, and quite as few flavors of Unix, and this mail client is the first time I've encountered the lack of clean up of the POP3 mailbox.
However, in a post earlier this evening, I mentioned that I changed the setting for the "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message:" from "Right Away" to "When moved from Inbox" (and yes, those are the exact text strings in the Accounts -> Advanced Preference pane), and the messages are now removed correctly from /var/mail/<user> on my host.
So, something that the rules processing interacting with the "Right Away" setting is not cleaning up properly. Changing it to "When moved from Inbox" is cleaning up messages that the Rules move to other folders (including messages that Spamsieve moves to other folders).
Steve