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

sudo userdel username - removes a user username leaving intact its files, namely the /home/username directory and a mailbox file. This is useful when you want to temporarily deactivate a particular user.

sudo userdel -r username - removes a user username and recursively wipes out everything associated with this user.