Creating mailbox file: File exists

Question

I added user through command

adduser satya

I deleted the same user by

userdel satya

WhenI tried adding again

useradd satya

getting the following error:

Creating mailbox file: File exists

Answer 1

Used userdel -r satya for deleting the user, it deleted the mail box too.

Now useradd satya created the user.

Answer 2

That is because of how you delete a user.

• useradd username - adds a new user username;

• [sudo] userdel username - removes a user username leaving intact its files, namely its $HOME directory (/home/username). This is useful when you want to temporarily deactivate a particular user. Now, in some Linux environments (apparently in yours too), mailbox file is under a $HOME directory and that is why, in your case, it did not get deleted;

• [sudo] userdel -r username - removes a user username and recursively wipes out everything associated with this user (i.e. its $HOME directory).

[x] denotes x being optional.