Re: stop "You have mail in /var/mail/mike"

[Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org>]

On Fri, Aug 08, 2025 at 14:48:01 -0500, Mike McClain wrote:
> Is there any way to stop this most annoying message from appearing on
> the commandlineas I'm entering some command?

Assuming you're running bash, the variables in question are:

       MAIL   If this parameter is set to a file or  directory  name  and  the
              MAILPATH  variable  is not set, bash informs the user of the ar‐
              rival of mail in the specified file or Maildir-format directory.

       MAILCHECK
              Specifies how often (in seconds) bash checks for mail.  The  de‐
              fault  is  60  seconds.   When it is time to check for mail, the
              shell does so before displaying the  primary  prompt.   If  this
              variable  is  unset,  or  set  to  a  value that is not a number
              greater than or equal to zero, the shell disables mail checking.

Something is setting the MAILCHECK variable in your environment; either
find and remove that, or override it by unsetting it or changing its
value to "0" later in your shell dot files.