The Claws Mail User Manual
The Claws Mail Team
Copyright (c) 2006-2016 The Claws Mail Team.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. What is Claws Mail?
1.2. What Claws Mail is not
1.3. Main features
1.4. History of Claws Mail
1.5. Useful URLs
2. Getting started with Claws Mail
2.1. The initial wizard
2.2. Getting mail
2.3. Reading your mail
2.4. Writing your first mail
2.5. Sending your first mail
3. Basic mail handling
3.1. Mail folders
3.2. Folder organisation
3.3. IMAP subscriptions
3.4. Filtering
3.5. Searching
4. Account customisation
4.1. Basic preferences
4.2. Account types
4.2.1. POP3
4.2.2. IMAP
4.2.3. News
4.2.4. Local
4.2.5. SMTP only
4.3. Multiple accounts
4.4. More filtering
5. Address book
5.1. Basic management
5.2. Exporting and importing addresses
5.3. Filtering messages using the address book
5.4. Advanced features
5.4.1. Using LDAP servers
5.4.2. Integration with jPilot
5.4.3. vCard support
6. Advanced features
6.1. Actions
6.2. Templates
6.3. Processing
6.4. Colour Labels
6.5. Tags
6.6. Mailing-List support
6.7. Plugins
6.8. Deploying Claws Mail
6.9. Hidden preferences
6.10. Autofaces
7. Extending Claws Mail
7.1. Plugins
7.2. Network access from the plugins
7.3. Plugin path configuration
A. The Claws Mail FAQ
A.1. What are the differences between Claws Mail and
Sylpheed?
A.2. Does Claws Mail allow me to write HTML styled messages?
A.3. How can I submit patches, report bugs, and talk about
Claws Mail with others?
A.4. Does Claws Mail have an anti-spam feature?
A.5. Does Claws Mail support Return Receipts?
A.6. How can I make Claws Mail notify me when new mail
arrives?
A.7. Why are special characters (e.g. umlauts) not displayed
correctly?
A.8. Can I quote just a section of the original message when
replying?
A.9. Where can I find the answers to more FAQs about Claws
Mail?
B. Default keyboard shortcuts
B.1. Motivations and general conventions
B.2. Main window
B.3. Compose window
C. Acknowledgements
D. Glossary
E. Gnu General Public License
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1. Introduction
1.1. What is Claws Mail?
Claws Mail is an email client aiming at being fast, easy-to-use and
powerful. It is mostly desktop-independent, but tries to integrate with
your desktop as best as possible. The Claws Mail developers try hard to
keep it lightweight, so that it should be usable on low-end computers
without much memory or CPU power.
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1.2. What Claws Mail is not
Claws Mail is not a full-featured Personal Information Manager like
Evolution or Outlook, although external plugins provide these
functionalities. Claws Mail will not let you write and send HTML emails or
other kind of annoyances, hence it may not be the software you need in
some business environments.
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1.3. Main features
Claws Mail sports almost everything a perfect email client needs. Mail
retrieval over POP3, IMAP4, local mbox, over SSL; support for various
authentication schemes. It has multiple accounts and mailboxes, powerful
filtering and search functionality, import/export capabilities using a
number of formats, support for GnuPG (digital signatures and encryption).
It supports plugins, customisable toolbars, spell checking, a number of
guards to prevent any data loss, per-folder preferences, and much more. A
list of features can be found at www.claws-mail.org/features.php.
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1.4. History of Claws Mail
Claws Mail has existed since April 2001. It was initially named
Sylpheed-Claws and changed its name to Claws Mail in November 2006. The
primary goal of Sylpheed-Claws was to be a test-bed for potential features
of Sylpheed, so that new features could be tested thoroughly without
compromising Sylpheed's stability. Sylpheed-Claws developers regularly
synchronised their codebase with Sylpheed's codebase, and Sylpheed's
author, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, took back the new features he liked once they
were stabilised.
Originally both Sylpheed and Claws Mail were based on GTK1. The work on
the GTK2 versions started in early 2003, and the first modern (GTK2-based)
Sylpheed-Claws was released in March 2005. Since about this time, Sylpheed
and Sylpheed-Claws' goals started to diverge more, and Sylpheed-Claws
became an entity of its own. This is why its name is now Claws Mail.
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1.5. Useful URLs
Website: www.claws-mail.org
Latest News: www.claws-mail.org/news.php
Plugins: www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
Icon Themes: www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
Tools: www.claws-mail.org/tools.php
Mailing Lists: www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
Bugtracker: www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/
Source code:
Tarballs
sourceforge.net/projects/claws-mail/files/
VCS repository
git.claws-mail.org/
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2. Getting started with Claws Mail
2.1. The initial wizard
The first time that you start Claws Mail, you will be asked a few
questions in order to set up an account. These questions are easy to
answer and grouped in several short pages.
First you will be asked to fill in your name, (usually guessed from the
operating system), your email address, and the name of your organisation,
(optional).
The following page will allow you to enter details of how to retrieve your
mail. The format of the page will be determined by the "Server type":
POP3
If you choose POP3, you will need to enter the server address,
username, and password. The password is optional, if you don't
provide it here then you will be prompted for it each time it is
needed.
IMAP
If you choose IMAP, you will need to enter the server address,
username, password, and IMAP server directory. The password is
optional, if you don't provide it here then you will be prompted
for it each time it is needed. The IMAP server directory is also
optional, often it is not needed and can be left empty.
Local mbox file
If you choose Local mbox file, you will need to enter the
location of your local mailbox spool file. This location depends
on your Operating System, but values like /var/mail/username or
/var/spool/mail/username are common, where username is your
system login.
When you click the "Auto-configure" button, Claws Mail will attempt to
configure your account's servers based on your email address and the type
of account you have chosen.
On the next page you will enter the address of your SMTP server,
(sometimes referred to as "Outgoing server"). You will also be asked
whether to authenticate when sending mail; this is often not the case if
you're using an ISP to connect to Internet, and often the case if you are
configuring a professional account.
If you chose either POP3 or Local mbox file, the next page will ask you
where you want to save your mail on disk. The default, "Mail", is usually
ok and will save your mails in a directory called Mail in your home
directory.
If Claws Mail is built with support for OpenSSL, you will next see the
"Security" page, here you will be able to choose to use SSL encryption to
send and receive your emails. Most ISPs do not enable this, but many
companies do; if you're unsure about it, you can leave them unselected.
You can now click on the Save button, and start enjoying Claws Mail.
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2.2. Getting mail
Retrieving your email can be done from the toolbar button named "Get mail"
or from the "Receive" submenu of the "Message" menu.
If you want Claws Mail to check your mail automatically at regular
intervals, you can ask it to do so from the "Mail handling: Receiving"
preference page which you'll find in the "Configuration/Preferences..."
menu. Just click the "Automatically check new mail every [...] minute(s)"
checkbox, and set the interval to your liking.
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2.3. Reading your mail
Once you have retrieved your emails, the Inbox folder will contain them.
The total number of emails in a folder is shown at the right of the
folder's name, along with the number of unread and new emails in it. To
see them, click on the folder row in the folder list, and the list of
emails in that folder will be displayed in the Message List pane. You can
then select an email using the mouse, or by using the Up and Down keys to
navigate through the list, and the Space bar to display and scroll emails.
You can use other keys to navigate through emails, like P and N (previous
and next).
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2.4. Writing your first mail
When clicking on the "Compose" button of the toolbar, a composition window
will open. This window contains different fields which you should be able
to recognise easily: if you have multiple accounts, the From field can be
used to select which account you want to use for this email; the To field
is for recipient of the email. When you fill it in, a second To field will
appear, so that you can send the email to multiple recipients. You can
also change the To field to a Cc field or other types of fields, by using
its dropdown menu, or by typing in the field that you require. After that,
you will be able to set the subject of your email, then type its body.
A little note about an email's subject: Claws Mail will ask you for
confirmation if you attempt to send an email with an empty subject. This
is because it can be annoying for the recipient to receive emails without
a subject, as it doesn't help in handling email.
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2.5. Sending your first mail
When you have finished writing your first email, you can either click the
"Send" button to send your email immediately, or use the "Send later"
button to queue the message for later sending. When using "Send", the
composition window will close itself when the mail has been sent; it will
stay open if there is an error. When using "Send later", the composition
window will immediately close, and your email will be stored in your Queue
folder. It will then be sent when you click the "Send" button in the main
window's toolbar.
The emails that you send are saved in the Sent folder of your mailbox, so
that you can recall what you wrote to whom, or use an already sent email
as a template to write another.
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3. Basic mail handling
3.1. Mail folders
If you receive a lot of emails, you will probably soon find that your
Inbox folder is growing to the point where you have a hard time finding an
email again, even if you received it just a few days ago. This is why
Claws Mail, like most good mail clients, provides you with multiple
possibilities in organising your mails.
You can create as many folders and subfolders as you need. For example,
one folder for your family, one folder for friends, folders for
mailing-lists, archive folders for old mails that you still want to have
available, etc. To create a new folder, simply right-click on its parent
folder and choose "New folder..." from the drop-down menu. If you want to
create a folder "Friends" inside your Inbox folder, for example, just
right-click on the Inbox folder, choose "New folder...", and type in
"Friends" in the dialogue that appears. Click the OK button, and the new
folder is created.
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3.2. Folder organisation
Now that you have created folders, you can manipulate them and their
contents using menu items or drag 'n' drop. Moving one folder into
another, for example, can be done by right-clicking on the folder you want
to move, choosing the "Move folder..." menu item, and selecting the
destination folder. This will move the folder, with the mail it contains,
to a subfolder of the chosen folder. Alternatively, you can drag a folder
to another one by clicking on it, keeping the mouse pressed, moving the
mouse cursor over the destination folder and releasing the button.
If you want to remove a folder and the mail it contains, simply
right-click on the folder and choose "Delete folder...". As this is
potentially harmful, (the mails in the folder will be deleted and not
recoverable), you will be asked for confirmation.
In the same manner that you move a folder to another one, you can move
emails from one folder to another. The same method applies for this:
either drag 'n' drop emails to a folder, or choose "Move..." after
right-clicking on the mail. You can select multiple emails by using the
Control or Shift key while clicking on them. You can also copy emails to
another folder by pressing the Control key when drag'n'dropping, or by
choosing "Copy..." from the email's contextual menu.
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3.3. IMAP subscriptions
The IMAP protocol allows one to store a list of subscribed folders. Most
mail user agents hide the unsubscribed folders away from the GUI, and have
a little window allowing to subscribe to these unsubscribed folders. In
Claws Mail, subscriptions are respected by default, and only subscribed
folders will be displayed. If you want to see all your folders, you can
just uncheck "Show subscribed folders only" in the IMAP mailbox'
contextual menu or the account preferences. You'll be able to subscribe
and unsubscribe folders from this contextual menu too. If the unsubscribed
folders are hidden from the list, you will have two ways to subscribe to a
folder: either show all folders, subscribe the ones you want, and hide
unsubscribed folders again; or, if you know the folder's name, use "Create
new folder" in its parent's contextual menu.
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3.4. Filtering
Once you have a nice folder hierarchy in place, you'll probably want Claws
Mail to sort your incoming emails automatically, in order to avoid having
to move messages manually each time they arrive. For this you can use the
Filtering feature.
You will find the filtering preferences via the "Configuration" menu,
"Filtering" item. From this dialogue you will be able to define new rules,
modify or delete existing rules, re-order the rules, and enable/disable
them. Filtering rules are defined by five things: the enabled status, a
name, an account name, a condition, and an action. All disabled rules are
simply ignored. The "Name" entry is optional, it's there to help you
identify your rules. An account name can be chosen, which will restrict
the rule to mail retrieved from the named account only, skipping it for
mail retrieved from all other accounts. The default value is "All", which
means that the rule is global and will be applied to all mail, regardless
of the account from which it was retrieved, (see paragraph below). The
condition format is an expression defining what Claws Mail should look for
when filtering mail, for example: "to matchcase claws-mail-users" is for
messages sent to any address containing "claws-mail-users". You can easily
define conditions by clicking the "Define..." button at the right of the
field. The last part of a filtering rule is the action, which instructs
Claws Mail what to do with mail matching the condition we just defined.
For example, "mark_as_read" marks the mail as read as soon as it arrives
in your inbox, or "move #mh/Mailbox/inbox/Friends" moves the mail to your
"Friends" subfolder. Here, too, a "Define..." button is available to help
you define the action to take.
Filtering rules can be assigned to a single, specific account. To do this
select an account from the "Account" combo below the "Name" entry. When
you set a specific account the filtering rule will only be applied to
messages retrieved from the named account. The default value is "All",
which means that the rule will be applied globally, to messages retrieved
from any account. When filtering messages manually, if there are any
per-account filtering rules defined, you will be asked what you wish to do
with those rules. Possible choices are to skip the rules, or apply these
rules regardless of the account to which they belong, or use the rules for
the currently selected account. Caution: if you unset the "Show this
message next time" checkbox and click "Filter", on subsequent manual
filtering this choice will be applied without any confirmation. Account
specific rules are only available for filtering, (at incorporation or
manually), the feature is not available for folder Processing or
Pre/Post-Processing.
Once you have defined the rule, you can add it to the list of rules with
the "Add" button. Don't forget that the order of the rules is important:
if Claws Mail finds a rule suitable for an email that either moves or
deletes the email, it will stop looking for further rules for that email.
This is why, at the right of the rules list, you will find four buttons
allowing the re-ordering of rules. The rules can also be reordered by drag
'n' drop.
There is also a quick method of creating filtering rules based on the
selected message. After selecting a mail of the type you want to filter,
choose "Create filter rule..." from the "Tools" menu, and choose a type
from the submenu: "Automatically" mainly helps for mailing-lists posts,
"by From" creates a filter based on the sender of the email, "by To"
creates a filter based on the recipient, and "by Subject" creates a filter
based on the subject. Each one of these types of filtering has its
advantages, it's up to you to find out what would be the more practical.
Usually, "by From" is nice to sort out your regular contacts' mails,
whereas "by To" is more useful to sort mails sent to your different
accounts.
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3.5. Searching
There are several methods for searching your emails.
One of them is relatively standard, and can be found in the "Edit" menu,
it's the "Search folder..." item. This will open a window where you can
specify one or more fields to search in: From, To, Subject, and Body.
After having specified your criteria, click on the "Back" or "Forward"
buttons to navigate through the matching emails, or use "Find all" to
select all the matching emails at once. Be aware that searching for text
in the body of emails is much slower than searching in its headers,
because the body of emails isn't cached by Claws Mail. "Extended Search"
mode can be turned on by clicking the relevant checkbox, thus allowing you
to use match expressions like those used in "Filtering" rules.
If you're looking at a large email and want to find a particular part of
it, you can use the "Find in current message..." item of the "Edit" menu.
This works like search in a text document.
The final way of searching for emails is using "Quick Search", which you
can display or hide by clicking the little magnifying glass icon under the
Message List. It is also accessible from the "Quick Search" item of the
"Edit" menu. "Quick Search" is more powerful than the normal search as it
can search in standard headers (From, To, Subject) or in "Extended" mode
using just about any criteria you can think of. When in "Extended" mode,
the "Information" button is visible, enabling you to see the search
syntax. An "Edit" button is also available which allows you to quickly
create a rule. You can also configure "Quick Search" to search recursively
through subfolders, whether it should reset itself when you change
folders, and whether to use Type-ahead search (this is a search which
results update dynamically if you pause in the typing).
When you hit Enter after having specified the search string, the Message
List will shrink to present you with only the matching messages. If you
set the search to be recursive, any subfolder of the current one that has
matching emails will change its icon to a magnifying glass icon. This way,
you can search in your whole mailbox at once. If the search is in Sticky
mode, the filter will stay applied when you go to another folder. This can
be disturbing at first, as you can forget about it, but is useful in some
cases, for example if you want to search in the body of emails and are not
sure of which folder contains the searched email: a recursive search on
the body of emails in a whole mailbox can be really slow.
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4. Account customisation
4.1. Basic preferences
The first tab of the account preferences, "Basic", contains, as its name
indicates, basic account data. In this tab you can specify your name,
email address, organization and basic connection information. The name of
the account is just the name Claws Mail will use when referring to this
account, for example, in the account switcher at the lower right-hand
corner of the main window. The server information lets you specify the
receiving protocol to use (which is not modifiable for existing accounts),
the server(s) used to receive or send your emails (usually pop.isp.com and
smtp.isp.com) and your login on the receiving server.
In the "Receive" tab you are able to change the default behaviour of Claws
Mail. For example, leaving messages on the server for a while, preventing
downloading of mails that are too large, or specifying whether you want
the filtering rules to apply to this account's mails. The "Receive size
limit" is used to limit the time spent downloading large emails. Whenever
you receive a mail larger than this limit, it will be partially downloaded
and you will later have the choice to either download it entirely or
delete it from the server. This choice will be presented to you while
viewing the email.
The "Send" tab contains preferences for special headers that you might
want to add to your outgoing emails, like X-Face or Face headers, and
authentication information for sending emails. Most of the time, your ISP
allows its subscribers to send email via the SMTP server without
authenticating, but in some setups, you have to identify yourself before
sending. There are different possibilities for doing that. The best one,
when available, is SMTP AUTH. When not available, you'll usually use
POP-before-SMTP, which connects to the POP server, (which is
authenticated), disconnects, and sends the mail.
The "Compose" tab holds options for changing the behaviour of the
Composition window when used with the account. You can specify a signature
to insert automatically, and set default Cc, Bcc or Reply-To addresses.
In the "Privacy" tab you can choose the default level of paranoia for your
account. You might want all outgoing emails to be digitally signed and/or
encrypted. Signing all outgoing emails, not only important ones, will for
example allow you to protect yourself from faked mails sent on your behalf
to coworkers. This can help solve embarrassing situations.
The "SSL" tab is also security related, although this time its settings
apply to the transport of your emails and not their content. Basically,
using SSL encrypts the connection between you and the server, which
prevents people from snooping on your connection and being able to read
your mails and your password. SSL should be used if it is available.
Finally, the "Advanced" tab allows you to specify ports and domains if the
defaults are not used. Normally you can leave these empty. You can also
specify folders for sent, queued, draft, and deleted messages here.
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4.2. Account types
We saw earlier that once an account is created, you can't change its type
(protocol) anymore. This is because preferences for these different types
are not quite the same, most of the POP3 related options are irrelevant
for IMAP, for example.
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4.2.1. POP3
POP3 is one of the two most used protocols and is available at almost
every ISP on Earth. Its advantage is that it allows you to download email
to your computer, which means that accessing your mail will be really fast
once you have it on your hard disk. The disadvantage of POP3 is that it is
more difficult to keep your mail synchronised on multiple computers,
(you'll have to keep the mail on the server for a few days), and you won't
be able to easily keep track of which mails you have read, or which mails
you have replied to, etc., when using another computer.
Mail received from a POP3 account will be stored in an MH mailbox in the
folder tree.
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4.2.2. IMAP
IMAP is the second most used protocol and its goal is to address the
shortcomings of POP3. When using IMAP your folder list and your emails are
all kept on a central server. This slows down navigation a little as each
mail is downloaded on demand, but when you use another computer, or email
client, your emails will be in the same state that you left them,
including their status (read, unread, replied, etc.).
When you create an IMAP account an IMAP mailbox is created for it in the
folder tree.
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4.2.3. News
News (NNTP) is the protocol for sending and receiving USENET articles.
Messages are held on a central server and downloaded on demand. They
cannot be deleted by the user.
When you create a News account a News mailbox is created for it in the
folder tree.
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4.2.4. Local
The "Local mbox file" type of account can be used if you run an SMTP
server on your computer and/or want to receive your logs easily.
Mail received from a Local account is stored in an MH mailbox in the
folder tree.
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4.2.5. SMTP only
The account type "None, (SMTP only)" is a special type of account that
won't retrieve any mail, but will allow you to create different identities
that can be used to send out emails with various aliases, for example.
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4.3. Multiple accounts
You can easily create multiple accounts in Claws Mail. For POP accounts,
you can choose to store all email from your different accounts in the same
folder(s), using the Receive tab preference. IMAP and News accounts each
get their own mailbox in the folder tree.
You can choose which accounts get checked for new mail when using the "Get
All" command (or "Get Mail" in the toolbar) by checking the relevant box
in the Receive tab of their preferences or in the "G" column of your
accounts list.
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4.4. More filtering
By default filtering rules are global, but they can also be assigned to a
specific account. When fetching mail, any rules that are assigned to a
specific account will only be applied to mails that are retrieved from
that account.
Mail from any account can be filtered into another account's folders, for
example, a mail received by POP3 could be filtered into an IMAP account's
folder, and vice-versa. This is either a useful feature or an annoying
one, depending on what you want to achieve. If you'd rather avoid that,
but still want to automatically sort your incoming mail, the best thing to
do is to disable Filtering on certain accounts, and use Processing rules
in the Inbox folders that you specified, as Processing rules are
automatically applied when entering a folder and can be manually applied
from a folder's context menu.
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5. Address book
5.1. Basic management
The address book is accessible via the "Tools/Address book" menu. It is
arranged in different sections: the "Address Book" and its subsections,
which contain the contacts that you added locally; the vCard sections,
which contain imported vCards; and, if support for them was built into
Claws Mail, the LDAP and jPilot sections, containing contacts from your
LDAP servers or handheld devices.
In the "Address Book" section, you can create multiple address books; each
one is able to contain addresses and/or folders. This can help you in
organising your contacts by category. In addition to this, you can create
groups of addresses, which can be used from the composition window to send
mails to multiple people at once. The menus in the address book window
allow you to do all of this. For example, you can create a Family folder
inside your "Personal Addresses" address book, using the "Book/New folder"
menu when "Personal Addresses" is selected, or by right-clicking on it. In
the same way, you can add contacts to an address book or folder by using
the "Address" menu, or by right-clicking an item in the list in the
right-hand part of the window. When adding a contact, a new window will
appear, where you'll be able to specify the details of the contact in the
first tab (Display Name, First Name, ...), and a list of email addresses
in the second tab.
A simpler way to save your contacts to your address book is to save them
when reading one of their emails, using the "Tools/Add sender to address
book" menu, or by right-clicking on an email address in the message view.
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5.2. Exporting and importing addresses
Claws Mail can import address books easily from the majority of email
programs. From the "Tools" menu in the address book, you will be able to
import Pine or Mutt address books. As these formats are not so widespread,
you can also import LDIF files. LDIF is a widely-used format, so most
other email programs can export their address book to this format.
Importing an LDIF file is done via "Tools/Import LDIF file" and is a
three-step operation: select the file to import and an address book name,
check the fields you want to import if the defaults do not please you,
then use the "Save" button.
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5.3. Filtering messages using the address book
It is possible to filter messages by matching addresses found in headers
against the address book, use for this the match type "Found in
addressbook" when defining the condition expression of a filtering rule.
You have to select the address header to match against a part of the
address book. The address header can be To, From, Cc, Reply-to and Sender
(if at least one address in that header matches, the rule will be
applied). Some special items allow to match at least one address found in
"Any" address header, or to match "All" addresses found in all address
headers. Click the "Select..." button to choose the address book part to
search in (either a book or a sub-folder), or select "Any" to search in
the whole address book.
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5.4. Advanced features
5.4.1. Using LDAP servers
LDAP servers are used to share address books across networks. They are
often available in companies. Enabling an LDAP server in Claws Mail is
quite straight forward. Choose "Book/New LDAP server" in the "Book" menu,
then choose a name for this LDAP server. Enter the hostname of the server
(e.g. "ldap.claws-mail.org"), its port, if necessary (the standard port is
389). You can then either fill in the "Search Base" yourself if you know
what to use, or click on "Check Server" to have Claws Mail attempt to
guess it automatically. If your server requires authentication, you can
set it in the "Extended" tab. When you close this window by clicking "Ok",
the server appears in the address book's sources list on the left-hand
side. When selecting the server, you will see an empty list of contacts at
the right, which can be surprising at first. This is to avoid doing full
searches on the server without you explicitly asking for it. You can now
search for names using the "Lookup" form at the bottom of this list. If
you want a full listing, just search for "*".
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5.4.2. Integration with jPilot
Claws Mail can use addresses stored on your handheld device.
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5.4.3. vCard support
Claws Mail can import vCards of your contacts by using "Book/New vCard".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Advanced features
6.1. Actions
Actions allow you to use all the power of the Unix command-line with your
emails. You can define various commands, taking parameters such as the
current email file, a list of emails, the currently selected text, and so
on. In this way, you'll be able to perform various tasks such as editing a
raw mail in your text editor, hide what you mean using ROT-13, apply
patches contained in emails directly, and so on. The only limit is your
imagination. You can create and configure Actions via the
"/Configuration/Actions..." menu.
The "Tools/Actions/" menu will contain one submenu item for each action
that you have created. When you have selected one or more messages in the
Message List, or are viewing a message in the Message View, selecting one
of these menu items will invoke the action, and, depending on how it was
defined, will pass the message(s) to it.
Additionally, it is possible to add toolbar entries for your actions. To
do so, open the "Configuration/Preferences" menu and select "Toolbars/Main
Window". Select "User Action" in the "Item type" dropdown menu, then
select the Action in the "Event executed on click" dropdown menu, and
click the "Icon" button to select the icon that you want to use.
Example 1. Simple "Open With..."
Menu name: Open with/kate Command Line: kate %p
Opens the file of the selected decoded MIME part (%p) with the
kate text editor.
Example 2. Spam management using Bogofilter
Menu name: Bogofilter/Mark as Ham Command Line: bogofilter -n -v -B "%f"
Marks the currently selected mails (%f) as "not spam" using
Bogofilter.
Menu name: Bogofilter/Mark as Spam Command Line: bogofilter -s -v -B
"%f"
Marks the currently selected mails (%f) as "spam" using
Bogofilter.
Example 3. Search Google using an external script
Menu name: Search/Google Command Line: |/path/to/google_search.pl
Searches Google for the currently selected text (|) using the
external script google_search.pl.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2. Templates
Templates are used in composition windows, and act as a model for emails.
Templates can be filled with static text and dynamic parts, such as the
original sender's name ("Dear %N, ..."), the date, etc. When applying a
template, the dynamic fields will be replaced with the relevant values.
You can configure templates via the "Tools" menu.
When applying a template, you will be asked to "Insert" or "Replace", the
difference between replacing and inserting is only concerned with the
message body. "Replace" will replace the current composition window
message body with the body defined in the template, clearing it if the
template body is empty. "Insert" will insert the template's body, if set,
at the current cursor position.
Whether you choose to Insert or Replace, any To, Cc or Bcc field that is
defined in the template will be appended to the compose window's
recipients list. If it is defined, the template's Subject will always
replace the compose window's Subject.
Symbols can be used in all parts of the templates and will be substituted
with their respective dynamic value if possible, otherwise no value will
be used. This often makes more sense if you apply a template when replying
or forwarding, otherwise most of the symbols value will be undefined.
There is no restriction on which symbols can be used in template parts,
even if inserting the body (%M or %Q) may make no sense in common
situations.
When applying a template, the body is processed first, then the To, Cc,
Bcc and Subject fields follow.
Further information and examples of usage can be found in the
user-contributed FAQ on the Claws Mail website
http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.3. Processing
Processing rules are the same as Filtering rules, except that they are
applied when entering a folder or when manually applied from a folder's
context menu and apply only to this folder. You can use them to
automatically move old mails into an archive folder, or for further
dispatching of emails, and more. You can set each folder's Processing
rules by right-clicking on it.
Processing rules are accompanied by Pre-processing and Post-processing
rules. Like Processing rules, they apply when opening a folder or manually
applying them from a folder's context menu, but like Filtering rules, they
are shared across all folders. You can configure them from the "Tools"
menu. Pre-processing rules are executed before the folder's specific
Processing rules, while Post-processing rules are executed afterwards.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.4. Colour Labels
Colour labels can be used to denote a message as having a particular
significance. To set a colour label simply right-click a message in the
Message List and use the "Color label" submenu.
Colour labels are user-configurable. Both the colour and the label can be
set by the user. Preferences can be found on the
"Configuration/Preferences/Display/Colors" page.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.5. Tags
Tags are short text notes which may be set on messages. They are useful
for classifying messages with your own words. These tags can be used later
to find the mails with Quick Search or to manage them with filtering or
processing rules, for example.
Tagged messages are displayed with a yellow background at the top of the
Message View. This line shows all tags associated with the message. You
can enable the "Tags" column in the Message List, so tagged items can be
seen without having to open the message.
Setting of tags is done by right-clicking on the message in the Message
List or by the corresponding option in Message menu. A panel with the
existing tags is shown and you can select some of them or just add a new
one. Removal of existing tags is also allowed, of course.
Once tags exist it's even easier, as the context menu allows you to set
and unset tags with just one click to the selected messages. Mixed
selections of tagged and untagged messages are allowed, and Claws Mail is
clever enough to do what you want to do in any case.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.6. Mailing-List support
Claws Mail offers mailing-list support from the "Message/Mailing-List/"
submenu. When you have a mailing-list message selected, the submenu allows
you to quickly initiate subscribing, unsubscribing, posting, getting help,
contacting the list owner, and viewing the list archive; either by opening
a new Compose window with the appropriate address pre-filled, or by
opening the URL in your web browser.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.7. Plugins
Plugins are the mechanism for extending Claws Mail' capabilities. For
example, imagine that you want to store your mails in a remote SQL
database. In most mailers out there this is simply impossible without
reworking the internals of the mailer. With Claws Mail you can simply
write a plugin to achieve the task.
This is just an example of the possibilities. A good number of plugins
developed for Claws Mail already exist, and more are to come. The
Extending Claws Mail section gives details of them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.8. Deploying Claws Mail
The initial configuration wizard tries to guess various fields using
information gathered from the system, such as username, hostname, and
more. As it is oriented towards general use, the default values often have
to be fixed. However, this wizard is customisable, in a manner designed to
allow system administrators to deploy Claws Mail easily over various users
of one machine, or even over multiple machines installed via some
replication tool.
The first part consists of creating a wizard configuration template and
setting the various default parameters of a new Claws Mail installation.
* Start with a user who does not have a ~/.claws-mail directory, ideally
a new user.
* Start Claws Mail and go through the wizard. The values you fill in
will be of no use for the future deployment, so you can click
next-next-next.
* Once the wizard is finished and you have Claws Mail' main window
opened, configure the various defaults you want to have in the master.
You can load plugins, add people or LDAP servers in the addressbook,
create filtering rules, and so on.
* If needed, and if the deployed Claws Mail will use MH folders, you can
create subdirectories in the mailbox.
* Next, quit Claws Mail.
* Now, edit the newly created wizard template file,
~/.claws-mail/accountrc.tmpl. In this file, you will see different
variables, corresponding to the wizard's fields. You can leave some
commented, in which case the usual default will be used, or specify
values or variables. Not all fields can contain variables; for
example, smtpauth, smtpssl and recvssl are booleans, either 0 or 1,
and recvtype is an integer value. The other fields, like name, email,
or recvuser, are parsed by the wizard and the variables they contain
are replaced by values. This allows you to specify everything as
needed for your site, even if you have strange server names or server
logins.
* Save this file, and delete both ~/.claws-mail/accountrc, (which
contains your dummy account) and ~/.claws-mail/folderlist.xml, (so
that the folder tree will be correctly parsed for new users).
Recursively copy .claws-mail to /etc/skel/; if the deployed Claws Mail
will use MH folders, also copy the created Mail directory. chown all
of /etc/skel/.claws-mail and /etc/skel/Mail to root:root for security
reasons.
* Test! Create a new user, login as that user, run Claws Mail. If you
filled everything as you wanted, this user will just have to fill in
his passwords.
* Now, if you're creating a master for a site-wide deployment, you can
continue with this process. If you were just doing it for one machine,
you're done!
Here are the different variables of the accountrc.tmpl file:
domain
Your domain name (example.com). If not set, it'll be extracted
from the hostname.
name
The user's name. If not set, it'll be extracted from Unix login
information, which is usually ok.
email
The user's email. If not set, it'll be extracted from $name and
$domain.
organization
Your organization. If not set, it'll be empty.
smtpserver
The SMTP server to use. If not set, it'll be smtp.$domain.
smtpauth
0 or 1. Whether to authenticate on the SMTP server. If not set,
it'll be 0.
smtpuser
The login on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll be empty (same
login as for reception will be used).
smtppass
The password on the SMTP server. If not set, it'll be empty (if
smtppass is empty but smtpuser is not, the user will be asked for
the password).
recvtype
The type of server to receive from. 0 for POP3, 3 for IMAP4, 5 for
a local MBOX file. If not set, it'll be 0 (POP3).
recvserver
The reception server. If not set, it'll be (pop|imap).$domain,
depending on $recvtype.
recvuser
The login on the reception server. If not set, it'll be extracted
from the Unix login information.
recvpass
The password on the reception server. If not set, it'll be empty
(the user will be asked for it once per session).
imapdir
The IMAP subdirectory. If not set, it'll be empty, which is often
sufficient.
mboxfile
The MBOX file to receive from if $recvtype is 5. If not set,
/var/mail/$LOGIN.
mailbox
The MH mailbox to store mail in (for $recvtype 0 or 5). If not
set, it'll be "Mail".
smtpssl
0 or 1. Whether to use SSL for sending mail. If not set, it'll be
0.
recvssl
0 or 1. Whether to use SSL for receiving mail. If not set, it'll
be 0.
Here are the different variables you can use in the domain, name, email,
organization, smtpserver, smtpuser, smtppass, recvserver, recvuser,
recvpass, imapdir, mboxfile and mailbox fields:
$DEFAULTDOMAIN
The domain name as extracted from Unix hostname information. Often
wrong.
$DOMAIN
The domain name as set in the domain variable, the first of the
template file.
$USERNAME
The user's real name.
$LOGIN
The user's Unix login.
$NAME_MAIL
The user's real name as set in the name variable of the template
field, in lowercase and with spaces replaced by dots. "Colin
Leroy" becomes "colin.leroy".
$EMAIL
The email address as set in the email variable of the template
field.
Be sure not to use a variable before defining it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.9. Hidden preferences
There are a number of hidden preferences in Claws Mail, preferences that
some users who we wanted to please couldn't live without, but which did
not have a place in the GUI in our opinion. You can find the following,
and change them while Claws Mail is not running, in ~/.claws-mail/clawsrc.
There's a small tool written in Perl-GTK called Clawsker which provides a
user-friendly GUI for tweaking these settings instead of direct editing of
clawsrc. You can read more about it on the Clawsker page.
address_search_wildcard
TAB-address completion in the Compose window and other GUI places
will match any part of the string ('1') or just the start of the
string ('0'). Default value is '1'.
addressbook_use_editaddress_dialog
Use a separate dialogue to edit a person's details if set to '1'
(default). '0' will use a form embedded in the addressbook's main
window.
bold_unread
Show unread messages in the message list of summary view using a
bold font when set to '1' (default). '0' will use normal font.
cache_max_mem_usage
The maximum amount of memory to use to cache messages, in kB. It
will try to keep the memory usage below this value, but it will
always use the assigned amount of memory for speed gain. Default
value is '4096'.
cache_min_keep_time
The minimum time in minutes to keep a folder cache in memory.
Caches more recent than this time will not be freed, even if the
memory usage is too high. You should probably set this value
higher than your mail check interval. Otherwise the cache will
always be freed between checks even if the folder is accessed on
every check, which will cause much disk I/O. Default value is
'15'.
compose_no_markup
Don't use bold and italic text in Compose dialogue's account
selector if set to '1'. Default value is '0' (use markup).
default_header_color, default_header_bgcolor
Foreground and background colors to use for the Compose window's
header entry values. Default values are '#000000' (black) and
'#f5f6be' (pale yellow), respectively.
diff_added_color, diff_deleted_color, diff_hunk_color
Colors to use when displaying attachments in unified diff format.
Default values are '#008b8b' (dark cyan), '#6a5acd' (slate blue)
and '#a52a2a' (red brown) respectively.
emphasis_color
The colour used for the X-Mailer line in Message View when its
value is Claws Mail. Default value is '#0000CF' (medium blue).
enable_avatars
Enables capture and/or rendering of internal avatars (Face and
also X-Face headers if built with compface support). '0' disables
both, '1' enables capture only, '2' enables rendering only and '3'
enables both. Default value is '3'.
Note that external plugins already providing these features may
disable partially or completely this to speed up process,
regardless of the configured value.
enable_hscrollbar
Enable the horizontal scrollbar in the message list of Summary
View if set to '1' (default). Set it to '0' to disable.
enable_swap_from
Display the sender's email address in the To column of the Sent
folder instead of the recipient's when set to '1'. Default value
is '0'.
folder_search_wildcard
The type-ahead function in the Select Folder window will match any
part of the folder name ('1') or just the start of the folder name
('0'). Default value is '1'.
folderview_vscrollbar_policy
Specify the policy of vertical scrollbar of Folder List: '0' is
always shown, '1' is automatic and '2' is always hidden. Default
value is '0'.
hide_timezone
If enabled ('1') the timezone in date headers is set to the
unknown timezone value, as specified in section 3 of the RFC 5322.
Default value is '0'.
hover_timeout
Time in milliseconds that will cause a folder tree to expand when
the mouse cursor is held over it during drag 'n' drop. Default
value is '500'.
live_dangerously
Don't ask for confirmation before definitive deletion of emails
when set to '1'. Default value is '0'.
log_error_color, log_in_color, log_msg_color, log_out_color,
log_warn_color, log_status_ok_color, log_status_nok_color,
log_status_skip_color
The colours used in the log window. Default values are: '#af0000'
(dark red), '#000000' (black), '#00af00' (dark lime green),
'#0000ef' (blue), '#af0000' (dark red), '#00af00' (dark lime
green), '#0000af' (dark blue) and '#aa00aa' (dark magenta)
respectively.
master_passphrase_pbkdf2_rounds
Number of rounds (or iterations) to use in PBKDF2 function when
computing next master passphrase key derivation. Currently stored
master passphrase KD is not affected by changing this preference.
Default value is '50000'.
msgview_date_format
'0' or '1'. Use the same user-defined date format in the Message
View as is used in the Message List. Default is '0', turned off.
next_on_delete
'0' or '1'. Controls the message selection after deleting, moving,
or trashing a message. Default is '0', select previous message.
outgoing_fallback_to_ascii
'0' or '1'. The outgoing encoding of a message will use 7bit
US-ASCII whenever it is suitable for the message content, ignoring
the "Outgoing encoding" option unless it is necessary. Turning
this option off forces the user-defined encoding to be used,
regardless of message content. Default is '1', turned on.
primary_paste_unselects
'0' or '1'. Causes the primary buffer to be cleared and the
insertion point to be repositioned when the middle mouse button is
used for pasting text. Default is '0', turned off.
qs_active_color, qs_active_bgcolor, qs_error_color, qs_error_bgcolor
Foreground and background colors to use in the QuickSearch field
when the search is active and when there is a syntax error.
Default values are '#000000' (black), '#f5f6be' (pale yellow),
'#000000' (black), and '#ff7070' (pale red), respectively.
respect_flowed_format
'0' or '1'. Respect format=flowed on text/plain message parts.
This will cause some mails to have long lines, but will fix some
URLs that would otherwise be wrapped. Default is '0', turned off.
rewrite_first_from
'0' or '1'. This works around a limitation of some servers with
'overly-liberal parsers'. When this is turned on and the Content-
Transfer-Encoding is set to 8bit or 7bit, in a message body
starting with 'From ' the 'From ' will become '=46rom ' and the
Content-Transfer-Encoding will be changed to Quoted-Printable.
When it is turned off no such modification will be made but it is
very likely that an MTA will convert the 'From ' to '>From '. See
RFC 4155 for further details. Default value is '1', turned on.
save_parts_readwrite
If set to '1' saves temporary files when opening attachments with
write bit set. Default value is '0', temporary files are read
only.
show_compose_margin
'0' or '1'. Adds margins to the message text area in the Compose
window. Default is '0', turned off.
show_inline_attachments
'0' or '1'. Show inline attachments in MimeView. Default is '1',
turned on.
skip_ssl_cert_check
Disables the verification of SSL certificates when set to '1'.
Default value is '0'.
statusbar_update_step
Update stepping in progress bars. Default value is '10'.
stripes_color_offset
Specify the value to use when creating alternately coloured lines
in GtkTreeView components. The smaller the value, the less visible
the difference in the alternating colours of the lines. Default
value is '4000'.
summary_from_show
Controls the data displayed in the From column in the Message
List. Default value '0' displays name, '1' displays address and
'2' displays both name and address.
tags_color, tags_bgcolor
Foreground and background colors to use when displaying tags.
Default values are '#000000' (black) and '#f5f6be' (pale yellow),
respectively.
textview_cursor_visible
Display the cursor in the message view when set to '1'. Default
value is '0'.
thread_by_subject_max_age
Number of days to include a message in a thread when using "Thread
using subject in addition to standard headers". Default value is
'10'.
toolbar_detachable
Show handles in the toolbars when set to '1'. Default value is
'0'.
type_any_header
Allows to type any header on the compose window header entries
when set to '1'. By default ('0') only the entries available from
the combobox can be selected.
two_line_vertical
Spread message list information over two lines when using the
three column layout when set to '1' (default). Set it to '0' to
use only one line.
unsafe_ssl_certs
Allows Claws Mail to remember multiple SSL certificates for a
given server/port when set to '1'. This is disabled by default
('0').
use_networkmanager
Use NetworkManager to switch offline automatically. This is
enabled by default ('1'). Set it to '0' to ignore NetworkManager.
use_stripes_everywhere
Enable alternately coloured lines in GtkTreeView components when
set to '1' (default). Set it to '0' to disable them.
use_stripes_in_summaries
Enable alternately coloured lines in the main window GtkTreeView
components, (Folder List and Message List). The only useful way to
use this option is to set it to '0' when use_stripes_everywhere is
set to '1'.
utf8_instead_of_locale_for_broken_mail
Use UTF-8 encoding for broken mails instead of current locale when
set to '1'. Default value is '0'.
warn_dnd
Display a confirmation dialogue on drag 'n' drop of folders when
set to '1' (default). Set to '0' to bypass this confirmation.
warn_sending_many_recipients_num
Display a confirmation dialogue when sending a message to a number
of recipients larger than the value of this preference. Set to '0'
to bypass this confirmation.
zero_replacement_char
Character to show in Folder List counter columns when a folder
contains no messages. Default value is '0'.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6.10. Autofaces
Claws Mail allows setting the Face and X-Face headers directly from files,
either globally for all defined accounts or on a per-account basis. These
files must be placed in the ~/.claws-mail/autofaces/ directory.
If they exist, the global Face and/or X-Face headers for all accounts are
taken from the face and/or xface files respectively. In a similar manner,
Face and/or X-Face headers for a specific account can be provided by
face.accountname and/or xface.accountname, where accountname is the name
of the account you want this header to be associated with.
If the name of the account contains characters which may be unsuitable for
the underlying filesystem (including spaces) these are replaced by
underscores ("_") when searching for the autofaces of that account. For
example, if your account is called "<My Mail>", the name for the X-Face
filename for that account would be
~/.claws-mail/autofaces/xface._My_Mail_. Be aware that this feature
doesn't check the content of the files, or for duplication of headers,
(most mailers, including Claws Mail, will ignore duplicates and display
the last one only).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Extending Claws Mail
7.1. Plugins
Claws Mail's capabilities are extended by plugins, which are listed below.
Plugins are installed in $PREFIX/lib/claws-mail/plugins/ and have a suffix
of ".so". To load a plugin go to "Configuration/Plugins" and click the
"Load Plugin" button. Select the plugin that you want and click "Open"
button.
If you don't find the plugin you're looking for, it is possible that your
Operating System distribution provides it in a separate package. In this
case, search for the plugin in your package manager.
Some plugins provide the same functionality as others, (for example, the 3
anti-Spam plugins). In this case you will have to choose which one to
load, as Claws Mail will refuse to load more than one of the same type.
There is a list of all plugins available at
http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php.
ACPI Notifier
Enables new mail notification via the LEDs found on some laptops
like Acer, Asus, Fujitsu and IBM laptops. More information:
www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=acpinotifier
AddressKeeper
Saves all unknown recipient addresses ("To", "Cc" and/or "Bcc") to
a designated addressbook folder.
AttachWarner
Reminds you about possibly forgotten attachments. Checks for
common expressions found when attaching a file and warns you if no
attachment was added to the mail you're sending. More information:
www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=attachwarner
AttRemover
Allows you to remove attachments from emails.
Bogofilter
The Bogofilter plugin comes with two major features:
The ability to scan incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or
LOCAL account using Bogofilter. It can optionally delete mail
identified as spam or save it to a designated folder. Mail
scanning can be turned off.
The ability for users to teach Bogofilter to recognise spam or
ham. You can train Bogofilter by marking messages as spam or ham
from the Message List contextual menu, or using the relevant
toolbar button in the main window or the message window (see
"Configuration/Preferences/Toolbars"). Messages marked as spam are
optionally saved to a designated folder.
Plugin preferences can be found in
"Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/Bogofilter".
Bogofilter's advantage over Spamassassin is its speed.
Bogofilter must be trained before it can filter messages. To train
it you will need to mark some spam as Spam, and some legitimate
emails as Ham.
Bogofilter is available from http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/.
BSFilter
BSFilter is a plugin that is very similar to the Bogofilter plugin
but uses the bsfilter (bsfilter.org/index-e.html) bayesian spam
filter as a backend.
Like Bogofilter, you have to train it with spam and ham messages
in order for bsfilter to start recognising spam.
Plugin preferences can be found in
"Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/BSFilter".
Clamd
Allows scanning all messages received from IMAP, POP or local
accounts using the clam daemon part of the ClamAV (AntiVirus)
software (http://www.clamav.net/).
Fancy
Enables the rendering of HTML messages using the GTK+ port of the
WebKit library. By default, no remote content is loaded.
Plugin preferences can be found in
"Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/Fancy".
Fetchinfo
Inserts headers containing some download information, like UIDL,
Claws Mail' account name, POP server, user ID and retrieval time.
GData
Provides an interface to Google services using the gdata library.
Currently, the only implemented functionality is to include Google
Contacts in the Tab-address completion.
Libravatar
Enables the display of avatar images associated with user profiles
at libravatar.org or the user's avatar enabled domains. More
information: www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=libravatar
Mail Archiver
Enables folders and subfolders to be archived in several different
formats.
mailMBOX
Handles mailboxes in MBox format.
NewMail
Writes a message header summary to a log file, (Default:
~/Mail/NewLog), on arrival of new mail after sorting.
Notification
Provides various ways to notify the user of new and unread email.
More information:
www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=notification
PDF Viewer
Allows rendering of PDF and PostScript attachments using the
Poppler library and GhostScript external program. More
information: www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=pdf_viewer
Perl
Intended to extend the filtering possibilities of Claws Mail. It
provides a Perl interface to Claws Mail' filtering mechanism,
allowing the use of full Perl power in email filters.
PGP/Core, PGP/Inline and PGP/MIME
Handles PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails. Uses
GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/. More information:
www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=gpg
Python
This plugin provides Python integration features. More
information: www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=python
RSSyl
Allows you to read your favorite newsfeeds in Claws. RSS 1.0, 2.0
and Atom feeds are currently supported. More information:
www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=rssyl
S/MIME
Handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt
mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails. Uses
GnuPG/GPGME and GpgSM, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
SpamAssassin
The SpamAssassin plugin comes with two major features:
The ability to scan incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or
LOCAL account using SpamAssassin. It can optionally delete mail
identified as spam or save it to a designated folder. Mail
scanning can be turned off, which is useful if your email is
scanned on your server.
The ability for users to teach SpamAssassin to recognise spam or
ham. You can train SpamAssassin by marking messages as spam or ham
from the Message List contextual menu, or using the relevant
toolbar button in the main window or the message window (see
"Configuration/Preferences/Toolbars"). Messages marked as spam are
optionally saved to a designated folder.
Plugin preferences can be found in
"Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/SpamAssassin".
SpamAssassin's advantage over Bogofilter is that it's not only a
bayesian filter, but it also performs various local and network
tests to determine spaminess.
SpamAssassin is available from http://spamassassin.apache.org/.
Version 3.1.x or higher is required to use the learning feature in
TCP mode.
SpamReport
This plugin reports spam to various places. Currently the sites
spam-signal.fr and spamcop.net are supported, and the Debian lists
(lists.debian.org) spam nomination system.
TNEF parse
This plugin enables reading application/ms-tnef attachments. More
information: www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=tnef_parser
vCalendar
Enables vCalendar message handling like that produced by Evolution
or Outlook, and Webcal subscriptions. More information:
www.claws-mail.org/plugin.php?plugin=vcalendar
If you're a developer, writing a plugin to extend Claws Mail's
capabilities is probably the best and easiest solution. We will provide
hosting to your code, and will be glad to answer your questions in the
mailing-list or on the IRC channel, #claws on Freenode.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7.2. Network access from the plugins
Some of the external plugins, for example RSSyl, vCalendar, Libravatar or
Fancy, need Internet access for their operations (retrieving feeds in the
case of RSSyl or vCalendar, and fetching images in the case of Libravatar
or Fancy). These plugins use the Curl library. Hence, if your Internet
access is restricted by a proxy, you will need to tell libCurl to use this
proxy. This is done by setting an environment variable, http_proxy. For
example, http_proxy=http://user:passwd@myproxy.example.com:8080 will tell
libCurl to connect to port 8080 of the machine myproxy.example.com, with
the user "user" and password "passwd" to connect to the Internet.
You can either set this variable before starting Claws Mail by using, for
example, http_proxy=http://user:passwd@myproxy.example.com:8080
claws-mail, or you can set it in your ~/.bashrc file (or your shell
equivalent), by adding the following line[1]: export
http_proxy=http://user:passwd@myproxy.example.com:8080 (you'll have to
reconnect to have it taken into account).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7.3. Plugin path configuration
By default, when loading a plugin, its full path is saved in
~/.claws-mail/clawsrc.
As most users have only one copy of Claws Mail installed and always use
the same installation method, this is not a problem.
However, if you have multiple copies of Claws Mail installed and want to
share the same configuration among them, this may not work, particularly
when using different versions of Claws Mail.
A second installed copy will try to load the plugins installed by the
first and, if the versions differ, the plugins will be rejected.
In order to avoid this problem you can manually edit the plugins section
in the clawsrc file, replacing the full path with just the plugin file
name of those you want to load relative to the copy of Claws Mail being
run.
In so doing, each copy of Claws Mail will try to load those plugins from
its own plugin directory, rather than a fixed location.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A. The Claws Mail FAQ
A.1. What are the differences between Claws Mail and Sylpheed?
Claws Mail is a fork of Sylpheed, therefore you will find that it has all
the features that Sylpheed has and a lot more besides. It also includes
some modified dialogues to enhance usability. Further information can be
found at http://www.claws-mail.org/features.php.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.2. Does Claws Mail allow me to write HTML styled messages?
No. A discussion has gone on around this topic, and the outcome was that
HTML mail is not wanted. If you really need to send HTML, you can of
course attach a webpage to an email.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.3. How can I submit patches, report bugs, and talk about Claws Mail with
others?
Patches should be submitted via our Bugzilla,
http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/, but please follow the
patch guidelines at http://www.claws-mail.org/devel.php.
Bug reports should be submitted at our Bugzilla,
http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/.
To talk to others, you should join the Claws Mail users' mailing list.
Details can be found at http://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.4. Does Claws Mail have an anti-spam feature?
Yes. It has a SpamAssassin and a Bogofilter plugin. You can find details
of it on the Extending Claws Mail chapter.
You can also use other spam filters via the "Filtering" and "Actions"
features. Instructions on how to use other antispam filters with Claws
Mail can be found as a Bogofilter-based example on the Bogofilter FAQ.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.5. Does Claws Mail support Return Receipts?
Yes. To request a Return Receipt use "Options/Request Return Receipt" in
the Compose window. When you receive a message that requests a Return
Receipt a notification area is shown just above the message view. You can
either use the "Send receipt" button, or ignore the request - no receipts
are sent automatically.
If you do not ever want to send Return Receipts then you can use the
option "Never send Return Receipts" in the "Configuration/Preferences/Mail
Handling/Sending" page.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.6. How can I make Claws Mail notify me when new mail arrives?
Go to "Configuration/Preferences", in the "Mail Handling/Receiving"
section, use the settings for "Run command" in the "After receiving new
mail" frame. Alternatively, use the Trayicon plugin.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.7. Why are special characters (e.g. umlauts) not displayed correctly?
In most cases, this is caused by emails with broken encodings. You can try
to force it using the "View/Character Encoding" submenu.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.8. Can I quote just a section of the original message when replying?
Yes, select the section of the message that you want to quote and use
"Reply".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.9. Where can I find the answers to more FAQs about Claws Mail?
An enlarged, user-contributed FAQ can be found on the Claws Mail website,
http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
B. Default keyboard shortcuts
B.1. Motivations and general conventions
Although Claws Mail is a graphical application and can mainly be commanded
with your mouse, it also requires the frequent use of the keyboard.
Composing a mail is the most common of the tasks that require the use of
the keyboard. For people who write a lot of mails, having to move hands
from keyboard to mouse greatly reduces productivity, so Claws Mail
provides keyboard shortcuts to allow faster operation.
This not only benefits power users by providing keyboard alternatives and
keyboard navigation, it also enables people with disabilities, (who may
not be able to properly control a pointing device), to use Claws Mail.
The most general convention is the Escape key. Focused dialogues or
windows can be closed by hitting the Esc key.
There are other key combinations which are assigned by default to menu
items. We won't list these here, as they are already shown on the
righthand side of the menus themselves, so you can easily learn them with
usage. Furthermore, if you don't like them, these shortcuts can be changed
on the fly by focusing on the menu item and pressing the desired key
combination.
In addition to these shortcuts there are others which vary from window to
window, which are summarised in the following sections.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
B.2. Main window
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shortcut |
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+p | Print...
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+w | Work offline
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+Shift+s | Synchronise folders
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+s | Save as...
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+q | Exit
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+c | Copy
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+a | Select all
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+f | Find in current message...
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+f | Search folder...
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+t | Toggle threaded display
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
n | Go to next mail in Message List. The Down arrow does the
| same.
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
p | Go to previous mail. The Up arrow is a synonym.
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+n | Go to next unread mail.
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+p | Go to previous unread mail.
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
g | Go to other folder...
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+u | Show message source
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+h | Show all message headers
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
| Toggles the message view panel visibility. When
v | invisible, Message List expands itself to fill the full
| window height and more summary lines are displayed.
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
/ | Positions the cursor on the Quicksearch field, also
| opening the Quicksearch panel if needed.
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+Alt+u | Update summary
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+i | Get mail from current account
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+i | Get mail from all accounts
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+m | Compose a new message
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+r | Reply
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+r | Reply to all
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+l | Reply to mailing list
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+Alt+f | Forward message
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+o | Move...
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+o | Copy...
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+d | Move to trash
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+d | Empty all Trash folders
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+* | Mark message
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
u | Unmark message
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+! | Mark message as unread
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+a | Open address book
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
x | Execute
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+l | Open log window
--------------+-----------------------------------------------------------
Ctrl+F12 | Toggles menu bar visibility
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
B.3. Compose window
--------------------------------------------
Shortcut |
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+Return | Send
--------------+-----------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+s | Send later
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+m | Attach file
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+i | Insert file
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+g | Insert signature
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+s | Save
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+w | Close
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+z | Undo
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+y | Redo
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+x | Cut
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+c | Copy
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+v | Paste
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+a | Select all
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+b | Move a character backward
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+f | Move a character forward
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+e | Move to end of line
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+p | Move a previous line
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+n | Move a next line
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+h | Delete a character backward
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+d | Delete a character forward
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+u | Delete line
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+k | Delete to end of line
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+l | Wrap current paragraph
--------------+-----------------------------
Ctrl+Alt+l | Wrap all long lines
--------------+-----------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+l | Toggle auto wrapping
--------------+-----------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+x | Edit with external editor
--------------+-----------------------------
Shift+Ctrl+a | Open address book
--------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Acknowledgements
The Claws Mail manual was written by:
* Colin Leroy
* Paul Mangan
* Ricardo Mones
* Tristan Chabredier
Thanks to:
* Hiroyuki Yamamoto for starting Sylpheed, and all past and current
contributors.
* Caroline, Clo and Silvia for their tolerance wrt long hacking
sessions!
* Norman Walsh, for his invaluable technical help and assistance with
the PDF version of this manual
* ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
D. Glossary
A
Account
An account represents an identity within Claws Mail. As such only
one email address is associated with each account. However, the
number of accounts you can setup is unlimited.
Action (filtering/processing rules)
An action is something that is performed on a message when it
matches the rule conditions. A typical action is moving the
message to a particular folder. See also Condition
(filtering/processing rules) .
Actions
Actions are user-defined commands that can be applied to a
message, or part of a message, using a special syntax. They are
presented to the user in a customisable menu.
Address book
Storage for names, mail addresses and custom user attributes. Also
provides access to LDAP servers and vCard files.
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard
Character encoding using 7 bit. It's defined as an Internet
standard in RFC 20.
Attachment
Additional file(s) included with a mail message. Some attachments
can be displayed by Claws Mail, others require external programs.
Plugins can provide additional functions for attachments.
C
Character encoding
A map between written symbols, like letters and other symbols, and
the numbers used to represent them inside the computer. The most
well-known character encoding is probably ASCII , but it has
been superseded by others, such as UTF-8 .
Compose
Create new a message text or a reply to a received mail in the
Compose window.
Condition (filtering/processing rules)
The prerequisites that a mail message must fulfil in order for the
rule's action to be executed. See also Action
(filtering/processing rules) .
D
Digital signature (GPG)
A piece of data obtained from merging a message and a
cryptographic key which ensures message authorship, in a similar
way that a hand-written signature does in a document. This piece
of data is sent with the m essage so the recipient can verify its
validity.
E
Encryption (GPG)
Scrambling a message with a cryptographic key so that only the
recipient and ownwer of the key password can unscramble it for
reading.
F
Face
A more modern implementation of the X-Face , it's a coloured
image (48x48 pixels) included in the message headers.
Filtering rule
A Rule applied to incoming messages. Filtering rules can be also
applied manually to the contents of any folder.
Folder
A folder is the primary message container. Folders can be local or
remote, but they are managed in a uniform way by Claws Mail.
Forward
To send a copy of a received mail to another recipient, optionally
adding your own message.
H
Headers
Machine readable lines which form the first part of a mail
message. The purpose of headers varies; Typical headers are From
and To which state the sender and recipient of the message, others
are used by the mail system. Some headers are optional and are
used to provide additional information, such as X-Face or Face
.
HTML
Acronym for Hyper-Text Markup Language. It was the standard
language to encode web pages in the beginning of the WWW . Some
mail clients use this language to encode the textual body of mails
in order to craft special effects to text at the cost of
multiplying the message size several times. HTML mail is also
widely used by spammers to send Spam .
I
IMAP4
Internet Messaging Access Protocol (version 4). A protocol for
accessing email on a remote server from a local client. All
messages are stored in the remote server.
Immediate execution
When the "Execute immediately when moving or deleting messages"
option is used, operations performed on messages, (like deletions
or movements), are performed immediately. If the option is turned
off, all operations performed on messages by the user are only
carried out when the "Execute" button is pressed.
ISP
Internet Service Provider. A company which provides Internet
access to its customers. In the dialup access age these were the
big telephony companies, with the arrival of broadband access the
number of companies and types of services offered has grown
exponentially.
L
LDAP
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. A protocol for accessing
information directories such as organisations, individuals, phone
numbers, and addresses.
LDIF
LDAP Data Interchange Format. A text file format widely used for
moving data between LDAP servers and/or other programs.
Local mbox file
A local mailbox spool file in MBox format.
Log window
A special window which records protocol operations in detail that
are performed by Claws Mail. It's a useful tool for debugging.
M
Mailbox
The root folder of the folder hierarchy.
Maildir
A mailbox format in which all mail is kept in separate files.
Maildir++ is an extension to the maildir format.
Mailing-List
Electronic mailing-lists are a special usage of email that allows
for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users.
They often take the form of discussion lists, like the Claws Mail
users' list, where a subscriber uses the mailing-list to send
messages to all the other subscribers, who may answer in similar
fashion.
Mark (message)
An arbitrary indicator that can be set on a message by the user in
order to draw attention to the message. Marks are shown in the
Mark column of the Message List.
MBox
A mailbox format in which all mail is concatenated and stored in a
single file. The mbox format supported by Claws Mail is mboxrd.
Message
A message is the basic piece of information handled by Claws Mail.
A message is usually an email message, which is stored in MH
format on disk. Other kinds of messages (and storage formats) can
be handled through Plugins .
MH
A mailbox format in which all mail is kept in separate files. This
is the default mailbox format used by Claws Mail.
MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. Internet standards for
representing binary data in ASCII text format, Headers
encoding and Attachment s.
N
NNTP
Network News Transfer Protocol. The protocol used to post,
distribute, and retrieve USENET messages, also called news
articles or simply news for short.
Newsgroups
A set of hierarchical partitions of USENET messages on a News
server . The NNTP protocol allows the user to subscribe to one
or more newsgroups. New messages posted to the subscribed groups
are automatically downloaded on connection.
News server
Server which provides access to USENET messages in Newsgroups
through the NNTP protocol.
P
PDF
Portable Document Format. An open binary file format developed by
Adobe Systems to allow interchanging of printable documents
between different platforms. Inherits some features from
PostScript but not being a language made it easier to process,
especially on desktop computers.
PGP Inline
Digital signing method which includes the signature data in the
message body. Currently deprecated in favour of PGP MIME .
PGP MIME
Digital signing method which includes the signature data as a
separate MIME Attachment .
Plugins
External modules which can be loaded and used by Claws Mail to
extend its functionality. Technically speaking these modules are
shared libraries which can register one or several functions to be
called by Claws Mail when something interesting is being done.
POP3
Post Office Protocol (version 3). A protocol for retrieving email
from a remote server. Messages can be automatically removed from
server after downloading.
PostScript
Page description language primarily used and understood by
printing devices to generate its output. Was developed by Adobe
Systems and is now a widely used standard in the printing
industry. As it's a fully featured interpreted language it
requires some processing power to deal with.
Privacy (GPG)
Privacy provides methods for both signing and encrypting mail
messages you send and also for verifying and decrypting signed and
encrypted messages that you receive.
Processing rule
A Rule or set of rules belonging to a folder which are executed
on entering the folder.
Q
Queue
Temporary storage for messages which are waiting to be sent,
either because they couldn't be sent due a network failure or
because the user requested them to be sent later.
Quick Search
A powerful way to search for messages using almost any criteria
that you can think of.
Quotation
When replying to a message the user will often include a quoted
section of that message to provide the context. The quoted section
is shown by the prepending of a common character, usually ">".
R
Recursive (Quick Search)
A recursive Quick Search will also search in all subfolders of
the selected folder.
Redirect
To send a copy of a received mail in its original form to another
recipient.
Reply
Answer to a received message. As verb also the act of answering a
message.
ROT-13
Simple encryption method used since Romans age, which uses an
alphabet rotated thirteen positions to encode each letter of the
message. Used sometimes to hide funny messages on mails.
Rule
Logical structure comprised of one or more conditions (see
Condition (filtering/processing rules) ) and one or more
associated actions (see Action (filtering/processing rules) ).
Rules are used for filtering mail messages.
S
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A protocol for sending email to
servers.
SMTP server
A server which receives mail messages from other hosts and/or
sends mail messages to other hosts using the SMTP protocol.
Source (message)
The full text of a message as it is transmitted over the network.
This includes all headers, message body and encoded attachments if
present.
Spam
Junk mail, unsolicited commercial emails.
Spell checking
Automatic verification of spelling while typing or after
composition has finished.
SSL
Secure Sockets Layer. A protocol used to encrypt and protect data
sent over a network.
SSL certificate
A certificate installed on a secure server that is used for
identification.
STARTTLS
STARTTLS (Start Transport Layer Security) is a command used to
initiate a secure connection between two servers using SSL .
Sticky (Quick Search)
When the sticky option is set on Quick Search the search terms
are not cleared when changing folders.
Synchronisation (folder)
Making the contents of a local folder mirror those of an
equivalent remote folder in the associated mail server.
T
TCP
Transmission Control Protocol. The main protocol used in the
Internet. Allows media-independent reliable connections between
two endpoints and is supported by all modern Operating Systems in
use.
Themes
Image sets for changing the appearance of buttons, folders and
other graphical elements of Claws Mail.
Thread (messages)
A set of messages loosely relating to each other.
Toolbars
Sets of buttons arranged horizontally which provide access to all
commonly used functions. Toolbars in Claws Mail can be customised.
U
UIDL
Unique IDentification Listing. A POP3 command which allows
single message handling by asigning a unique identifier for each
message.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. A naming scheme for objects (usually
files) in a multi-protocol networked environment like current
Internet. For example, this is the one of the Claws Mail home
page: http://www.claws-mail.org.
USENET
User's Network. A bulletin board system of discussion groups,
often called Newsgroups .
UTF-8
8-bit Unicode Transformation Format. A variable length character
encoding capable of representing any universal character. An
Internet standard defined in RFC 3629.
V
vCard
File format standard for Personal Data Interchange, it can hold
information such as address, phone numbers, etc., much like the
information usually found in a business card. They are commonly
found attached to mail messages.
W
Wrapping
Restructuring of the message text based on a user-defined maximum
number of characters per line. Wrapping ensures that paragraphs
are justified, which means that they are aligned to the left and
right margins.
WWW
World Wide Web, the hyperlinked network of web pages across the
Internet.
X
X-Face
Specially coded black and white image (48x48 pixels) included in
the message headers. Capable mailers like Claws Mail and others
can decode and show it alongside the message text. Although they
are not unique, they can help to quickly identify the message
sender. See also Face .
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E. Gnu General Public License
See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.
Notes
[1] Other shells may have diferent syntaxes, check your shell's manual
page.
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