Übergibson

On CentOS the default /etc/profile sets the environment variable MAIL to the path of the user’s mailbox:

/etc/profile, line 35:

MAIL="/var/spool/mail/$USER"

Because of this, bash periodically interrupts my shell sessions and lets me know that I have mail. And I don’t really care because I get my mail through IMAP.

To shut it up, I unset it in my ~/.profile:

/home/alan/.profile:

export MAIL=""

Fancy.