#737383 Remove mbox-style From_ line before the first header line

Package:
maildrop
Source:
maildrop
Description:
mail delivery agent with filtering abilities (set-GID=mail)
Submitter:
Andrei POPESCU
Date:
2025-08-22 15:17:01 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
Tags:
#737383#3
Date:
2014-02-02 10:36:25 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

I'm using maildrop to deliver to various Maildirs (which are then
indexed with notmuch and read with mutt). As of 2.7.1-1 maildrop adds on
top of any message a header like:

    From amp@sid.nuvreauspam  Sun Feb  2 12:28:13 2014

As a consequence notmuch complains like this:

amp@sid:~$ notmuch new
Warning: /home/amp/Maildir/new/1391336893.M959803P4710V0000000000000806I000000000004236B_0.sid,S=1902 is an mbox containing a single message,
likely caused by misconfigured mail delivery.  Support for single-message
mboxes is deprecated and may be removed in the future.
Processed 1 file in almost no time.
Added 1 new message to the database. Removed 1 message.

The complete file is attached to prevent mangling by MUA/MTA/MDA.

Downgrading to 2.6.0-1 makes the warning disappear. This happens both
for locally delivered messages or Debian list messages retrieved with
getmail.

Postfix invokes maildrop with

    mailbox_command = maildrop

Getmail invokes maildrop with


    [destination]
    type = MDA_external
    path = /usr/bin/maildrop
    unixfrom = True


If you need more information please don't hesitate to ask.

Kind regards,
Andrei
#737383#8
Date:
2014-02-03 12:11:27 UTC
From:
To:
control:severity 737383 wishlist
control:tags 737383 wontfix
control:retile 737383 "Remove mbox-style From_ line before the first header line"

I checked this with the upstream.

Short answer:
 This is the design decision by the upstream.
 Please use "reformail -f0"
...

First, in the new manpage of maildir under DESCRIPTION:

  maildrop does not accept an mbox-style From_ line before the first
  header line.  maildrop does not accept leading empty lines before the
  first non-blank header line. If the message can possibly start with
  empty lines, and a From_ line, use reformail -f0 to remove any initial
  empty lines, and replace a From_ line with a proper “Return-Path:”
  header; then pipe it to maildrop.

Here is a quoted message from the upstream:

| The addition of this was announced but not included in upstream
| changelog.
|   http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=31458904
|
| Basically, if the mail server is giving maildrop a message with the
| From_ line, maildrop no longer gets rid of it. The change is to either
| reconfigure the mail server so that it no longer attaches a From_ line
| to the message, or use reformail to get rid of it.
#737383#19
Date:
2014-11-12 10:49:58 UTC
From:
To:
I had the same problem with maildrop and notmuch. I figured out that exim is
adding the From_ line, but it can be disabled. Something similar is probably
true of other MTAs.

The default value for message_prefix in the exim pipe transport looks like
this:

message_prefix = \
  From ${if def:return_path{$return_path}{MAILER-DAEMON}}\
  ${tod_bsdinbox}\n

You can disable it by adding 'message_prefix = ' to your maildrop_pipe
transport, this is mine:

maildrop_pipe:
  debug_print = "T: maildrop_pipe for $local_part@$domain"
  driver = pipe
  path = "/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin"
  command = "/usr/bin/maildrop"
  message_prefix =
  message_suffix =
  return_path_add
  delivery_date_add
  envelope_to_add

I'm probably going to file a separate bug against exim requesting that the
Debian exim config for maildrop_pipe doesn't add a From_ line.
#737383#24
Date:
2014-11-13 11:21:15 UTC
From:
To:
I filed my request for exim to not add From_ lines to messages before passing
them to maildrop: https://bugs.debian.org/769396
#737383#29
Date:
2025-08-22 15:14:00 UTC
From:
To:
I am going to close this bug report as it appears maildrop is functioning as
expected.