Hall: You mentioned you use a mailbox watcher; the mutt documentation sez: Note: new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to the last access time. Utilities like biff or frm or any other program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt to never detect new mail for that mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. Backup tools are another common reason for updated access times. jec -- Microsoft Free By 2003