Replying to my own email. I wrote: > I'm running Centos 4.2 with kernel-2.6.9-22.0.2.106.unsupported and > jfsutils-1.1.10-3.2 from the centosplus distribution, with a jfs > partition for my maildir mail spool, accessed using the dovecot IMAP > server. It seems that dovecot doesn't properly track new incoming email, > apparently because the modification time on .../Maildir/new doesn't get > updated when a new message is linked into it from .../Maildir/tmp. It appears the problem is fixed in 2.6.15: http://www.kernel.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=988a6490a793b73ff23aa3baf87b337152178e4d Looks like a simple change, so I may well try backporting it to the current kernel myself when I can get organised enough. Meantime a regular "find /mail -type d -name new -print | xargs touch" (euwww :) appears to do the trick. James