Since sometime in August, so about version 4.0-4, bash regularly claims to have new mail in every watched mailbox or maildir, even though there isn't and the timestamp hasn't changed (I verified this several times, just to make sure). When there really is mail, bash behaves correctly and prints an alert for just the correct mailbox. My mailpath is set in .bashrc: export MAILPATH="/var/mail/jona:~/Mail/debian:~/Mail/dev:~/Mail/sf:~/Mail/shutdownertron" If there's any other helpful information I will happily provide it.