1 Claws Mail - a GTK+ based, lightweight, and fast e-mail client
3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Copyright(C) 1999-2010 Hiroyuki Yamamoto <hiro-y@kcn.ne.jp> and the
8 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
9 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
10 the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
13 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
14 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
15 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
16 GNU General Public License for more details.
18 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
19 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
20 Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
23 For more details see the file COPYING.
25 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
29 1. What is Claws Mail?
35 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
39 11. How to request features
40 12. Installing Claws from CVS
45 1. What is Claws Mail?
46 --------------------------
48 Claws Mail (previously known as Sylpheed-Claws) is a lightweight and
49 highly configurable email client and news reader based on the GTK+
50 GUI toolkit, it runs on the X Window System.
52 Claws Mail is free software distributed under the GNU GPL.
54 To run Claws Mail use 'claws-mail' on the command line.
56 When claws-mail is executed for the first time a configuration
57 'Wizard' will appear prompting you for the minimum information
58 necessary to create a new account.
64 Claws Mail' capabilities are extended by plugins. It comes with
65 the following plugins included, all of which are built automatically
66 if the required libraries are present.
68 Plugins are installed in $PREFIX/lib/claws-mail/plugins/
69 and have a suffix of '.so'
70 To load a plugin go to '/Configuration/Plugins' and click
71 the 'Load Plugin' button.
72 Select the plugin that you want and click 'OK'
75 Enables the scanning of incoming mail received from a POP,
76 IMAP, or LOCAL account using Bogofilter. It can optionally
77 delete mail identified as spam or save it to a designated folder.
78 Bogofilter is a pure Bayesian filter, therefore it has better
79 speed performance than SpamAssassin but might catch less spam.
80 Bogofilter is available from http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/
83 Enables the viewing of html messages using the Dillo web
84 browser, version 0.7.0 or newer. It uses Dillo's --local
85 option by default for safe browsing. Preferences can be
86 found in '/Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/Dillo Browser'.
87 Dillo is available from http://www.dillo.org/
90 Handles core PGP functions and is required by the PGP/Inline
92 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, <ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/>
95 Handles inline PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
96 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
97 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, <ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/>
100 Handles PGP/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
101 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
102 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, <ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/>
105 This plugin handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
106 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails.
109 Enables the scanning of incoming mail received from a POP,
110 IMAP or LOCAL account using SpamAssassin. It can optionally
111 delete mail identified as spam or save it to a designated
112 folder. Preferences can be found in '/Configuration/
113 Preferences/Plugins/SpamAssassin'.
114 SpamAssassin is available from http://spamassassin.apache.org/.
117 Places an icon in the system tray that indicates whether
118 you have any new mail. A tooltip also shows the current
119 new, unread and total number of messages
121 Additonal plugins can be found here:
122 http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
127 The "actions" feature is a convenient way for the user to launch external
128 commands to process a complete message file including headers and body or
129 just one of its parts. It allows also the use of an external command to
130 filter the whole text or just a selected part in the message window or in
131 the compose window. This is a generic tool that allows to do any uncommon
132 actions on the messages, and thus extends the possibilities of Claws Mail.
133 For example, Claws Mail does not include the rot13 cyphering algorithm
134 popular in some newsgroups. It does not support uuencoded messages. As
135 all these features can be handled by external programs, the actions
136 provide a convenient way to use them from the menu bar.
141 To create a new action, go to Configuration -> Actions.... The "Action
142 Creation" dialog offers to enter the Menu name that will trigger the
143 command. The created menu will be found in the Tools -> Actions submenu.
144 By inserting a slash / in the menu name, you create a submenu.
146 The command is entered in the Command line entry. Note that Claws Mail
147 stores every single email in a separate file. This allows to use the
148 following syntax for the command:
150 * %f denotes the file name of the selected message. If you selected more
151 than one, then the command will be launched for each message with
152 the appropriate file name
153 * %F denotes the list of the file names of the selected message. If only
154 one message is selected, this amounts to %f, but if more messages
155 are selected, then the command will be launched only once with the
156 list of the file names. (You can use both %f and %F in one command:
157 then the command will be launched for each selected message with
158 the name of this message and with the list of all selected
159 messages. I did not find a practical example for this.)
160 * %p denotes the current selected message part of a multipart message.
161 The part is decoded accordingly. If the message is not a multipart
162 message, it denotes the message body.
163 * Prepending >: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
164 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window.
165 * Prepending *: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
166 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window. But in
167 contrast to prepending >, the entered text is hidden (useful when
169 * Appending an ampersand &: this will run the command asynchronously.
170 That means "fire and forget". Claws Mail won't wait for the
171 command to finish, nor will it catch its output or its error
173 * Prepending the vertical bar | (pipe-in): this will send the current
174 displayed text or the current selected text from the message view
175 or the compose window to the command standard input. The command
176 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
177 * Appending the vertical bar | (pipe-out): this will replace the current
178 displayed text or the current selected text from the message window
179 or the compose window by the command standard output. The command
180 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
182 Note: It is not possible to use actions containing %f, %F or %p from the
185 When a command is run, and unless it is run asynchronously, Claws Mail
186 will be insensitive to any interaction and it will wait for the command to
187 finish. If the command takes too long (5 seconds), it will popup a dialog
188 window allowing to stop it. This dialog will also be displayed as soon as
189 the command has some output: error messages or even its standard output
190 when the command is not a "pipe-out" command. When multiple commands are
191 being run, they are run in parallel and each command output is separated
192 from the outputs of the others.
197 Here are some examples that are listed in the same syntax as used for
198 storing the actions list. You can copy and past the definition in your
199 ~/.claws-mail/actionsrc file (exit Claws Mail before). The syntax
200 is very simple: one line per action, each action contains the menu name
201 and the command line separated by a colon and a space ": "
203 Purpose: rot13 cyphering
204 Definition: Rot13: |tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M|
205 Details: This will apply the rot13 cyphering algorithm to the
206 (selected) text in the message/compose view.
208 Purpose: Decoding uuencoded messages
209 Definition: UUdeview: xdeview %F&
210 Details: xdeview comes with uudeview. If an encoded file is split in
211 multiple messages, just select them all and run the command.
213 Purpose: Display uuencoded image
214 Definition: Display uuencoded: uudec %f&
215 Details: Displays uuencoded files. The uudec[1] script can be found in
216 the 'tools' directory of the distribution package.
218 Purpose: Alter messages
219 Definition: Edit message: gvim -f %F
220 Details: Allows editing of any received message. Can be used to remove
221 unneeded message parts, etc.
223 Purpose: Pretty format
224 Definition: Par: |par 72Tbgjqw74bEe B=._A_a 72bg|
225 Details: par is a utility that can pretty format any text. It does a
226 very good job in indenting quoted messages, and justifying
227 text. Used when composing a message
230 Definition: Part/Dillo: dillo %p&
231 Details: Browse the selected message part in Dillo.
234 [1] The uudec script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
235 distribution package. It needs uudecode and ImageMagick's display. The
236 latter can be replaced by any image viewer that can get input from
237 standard input. The script could also be modified to use temporary files
238 instead of standard input.
243 Claws has support for different icon sets. Several icon sets can be
244 downloaded from http://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
245 You will need to create a directory called 'themes' in your config
246 directory, unpack them into this directory, and then use the interface
247 to select them, /Configuration/Preferences/Display/Themes
249 This interface can also be used to install new themes.
252 5. Quick Search with extended search
253 ------------------------------------
254 Quick Search, with its powerful Extended search function,
255 enables searching through folder's messages.
257 Extended Search allows one to define criteria that messages must
258 have in order to match and be displayed in the summary view pane.
259 Search types titled From, Subject and To are self explanatory.
260 Search type extended allows one to use Claws Mail's powerful
261 filtering engine to select messages. Examples:
262 from regexpcase "foo"
263 subject regexp "Bug" & to regexp "claws-mail"
265 Additionally, it is possible to use simpler yet equally
266 powerfull patterns for message selections. Mutt users will
267 immediately recognise most of the available patterns:
269 Pattern Parameter Selects
270 ----------------------------------------------------
272 ag # messages whose age is greater than #
273 al # messages whose age is lower than #
274 b S messages which contain S in the message body
275 B S messages which contain S in the whole message
276 c S messages carbon-copied to S
277 C S message is either to: or cc: to S
279 e S messages which contain S in the Sender field
280 E S true if execute "S" succeeds
281 f S messages originating from user S
283 h S messages which contain header S
284 i S messages which contain S in Message-Id header
285 I S messages which contain S in inreplyto header
286 k # messages which are marked with color #
288 n S messages which are in newsgroup S
291 r messages which have been replied to
293 s S messages which contain S in subject
294 se # messages whose score is equal to #
295 sg # messages whose score is greater than #
296 sl # messages whose score is lower than #
297 Se # messages whose size is equal to #
298 Sg # messages whose size is greater than #
299 Ss # messages whose size is smaller than #
300 t S messages which have been sent to S
301 tg S messages with tags containing S
302 tagged messages which are tagged
305 x S messages which contain S in References header
306 x "cmd args" messages returning 0 when passed to command
308 y S messages which contain S in X-Label header
310 & logical AND operator
311 | logical OR operator
312 ! or ~ logical NOT operator
313 % case sensitive search
315 all filtering expressions are allowed
318 S means regexp string
320 It is possible to use logical operators AND (&), OR (|) and
321 NOT (! or ~). Case sensitive search is achieved with %.
325 f "john beavis" messages from john beavis
326 %f "John Beavis" messages from John Beavis (case sensitive)
327 ~s foo messages which do not have foo in the subject
328 f foo & ~s bar messages from foo that do not have bar in thesubject
334 /Configuration/Preferences/Customize Toolbars lets you define the
335 toolbar you want. The configuration dialog enables you to set an icon,
336 an appropriate text, and map an action to it. Actions to choose
337 from are predefined. You can also have your "Claws Mail Actions"
338 (refer to "Actions" above) on your toolbar.
341 * Configuration->Actions
342 - add an entry "Dillo: dillo %p&"
343 * Configuration->Custom toolbar
344 - select Claws Mail Actions Feature
345 - select "Dillo: dillo %p&" from drop down list
346 - choose an icon and click ok
350 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
351 ------------------------------------
352 Messages over the configured size limit, (/[Account preferences]/
353 Receive/Message size limit), will be partially retrieved. These
354 messages will have a Notice View displayed (above the Message View),
355 informing of the partially retrieved state and the total size of the
356 message. The Notice View will also contain two buttons, 'Mark for
357 download' and 'Mark for deletion'. If the user clicks 'Mark for
358 download', the message will be downloaded in full at the next message
359 retrieval, (and the partial one deleted); if the user checks 'Mark for
360 deletion' it will be removed from the server after the normal delay
361 as specified in the POP3 account's 'Receive' preferences.
362 If a user moves a partially retrieved message to the Trash folder
363 it will be deleted on the server at the next retrieval after the
364 Trash folder has been emptied.
370 It is recommended that you use Clawsker to edit these options,
371 http://www.claws-mail.org/clawsker
373 addressbook_use_editaddress_dialog (default: 1)
374 Use a separate dialogue to edit a person's details. '0'
375 will use a form embedded in the addressbook's main window.
378 bold_unread (default: 1)
379 show unread messages using bold font in summary view
382 cache_max_mem_usage (default: 4096)
383 the maximum kB of memory Claws Mail should use. It will try
384 to keep the memory usage below this value, but it will always
385 use the assigned amount of memory for speed gain.
387 cache_min_keep_time (default: 15)
388 the minimum time in minutes Claws Mail will keep the folder
389 cache in memory. If a cache is more recent than this time it
390 will not be freed even if the memory usage is above the
391 maximum. You should probably set this value higher than your
392 mail check interval. Otherwise the cache will always be freed
393 between checks even if the folder is accessed on every check,
394 which will cause much disk IO.
396 compose_no_markup (default: 0)
397 prevent italic and bold text in the Compose dialog account
399 0: normal (markup) 1: no markup
401 emphasis_color (default: #0000CF)
402 The colour used for the X-Mailer line when its value is
405 enable_dotted_lines (default: 0)
406 Use the old dotted line look in the main window GtkTreeView
407 components, (Folder List and Message List), instead of the
408 modern lineless look.
411 enable_hscrollbar (default: 1)
412 enable horizontal scroll bar in summary view
415 enable_swap_from (default: 0)
416 display sender's email address in To column in Sent folder
417 instead of recipient's
420 folderview_vscrollbar_policy (default: 0)
421 specify the policy of vertical scroll bar of folder view
422 0: always 1: automatic 2: never
424 hover_timeout (default: 500)
425 time in milliseconds that will cause a folder tree to expand
426 during drag n drop when the mouse cover is held over it
428 live_dangerously (default: 0)
429 Don't ask for confirmation before definitive deletion of
433 log_error_color (default: #af0000)
434 log_in_color (default: #000000)
435 log_msg_color (default: #00af00)
436 log_out_color (default: #0000ef)
437 log_warn_color (default: #af0000)
438 log_status_ok_color (default: #00af00)
439 log_status_nok_color (default: #0000af)
440 log_status_skip_color (default: #aa00aa)
441 The colours used in the Network Log window.
443 outgoing_fallback_to_ascii (default: 1)
444 The outgoing encoding of a message will use 7bit US-ASCII
445 whenever it is suitable for the message content, ignoring
446 the "Outgoing encoding" option unless it is necessary.
447 Turning this option off forces the user-defined encoding to
448 be used, regardless of message content.
451 primary_paste_unselects (default: 0)
452 Causes the primary buffer to be cleared and the insertion
453 point to be repositioned when the middle mouse button is used
457 respect_flowed_format (default: 0)
458 Respect format=flowed on text/plain message parts. This will
459 cause some mails to have long lines, but will fix some URLs
460 that would otherwise be wrapped.
463 save_parts_readwrite (default: 0)
464 Saves temporary files when opening attachment with write bit
468 skip_ssl_cert_check (default: 0)
469 Disables the verification of SSL certificates.
472 statusbar_update_step (default: 10)
473 update stepping in progress bars.
475 stripes_color_offset (default: 4000)
476 Specify the value to use when creating alternately coloured
477 lines in GtkTreeView components. The smaller the value, the
478 less visible the difference in the alternating colours of the
481 textview_cursor_visible (default: 0)
482 display the cursor in the message view.
485 thread_by_subject_max_age (default: 10)
486 number of days to include a message in a thread when using
487 'Thread using subject in addition to standard headers'.
489 toolbar_detachable (default: 0)
490 hide handles in the toolbar.
493 two_line_vertical (default: 1)
494 Spread message list information over two lines when using the
498 unsafe_ssl_certs (default: 0)
499 Allows Claws to remember multiple SSL certificates for a
503 use_networkmanager (default: 1)
504 Use NetworkManager to switch offline automatically.
507 use_stripes_everywhere (default: 1)
508 Enable alternately coloured lines in GtkTreeView components.
511 use_stripes_in_summaries (default: 1)
512 Enable alternately coloured lines in the main window
513 GtkTreeView components, (Folder List and Message List). The
514 only useful way to use this option is to set it to 0 when
515 use_stripes_everywhere is set to 1.
518 utf8_instead_of_locale_for_broken_mail (default: 0)
519 Use UTF-8 encoding for broken mails instead of current
523 warn_dnd (default: 1)
524 Display a confirmation dialog on drag'n'drop of folders.
529 You will find all of these tools in the 'tools' directory:
531 acroread2claws-mail.pl
532 send PDFs from Adobe Reader 7
534 import mbox files exported by calypso
535 claws-mail-compose-insert-files.pl
536 insert files into a new Compose window
538 convert mbox format to MH format
540 import Becky, Thunderbird, Kmail, Gmail and Fox Mail
543 convert a Eudora (v.3?) addressbook to vCard
546 convert sylpheed main's filter rules, (< 0.9.99),
547 into Claws' filtering format
549 convert sylpheed main's filter rules, (>= 0.9.99),
550 into Claws' filtering format
552 Replace/Add a message's Date field
554 Actions script to lookup the selected text on
555 Freshmeat www.freshmeat.net using the configured
558 convert a gif file to an xface
560 Actions script to lookup selected message-id on
561 google using mozilla.
563 Actions script to lookup up the selected text on
564 google using the configured browser
566 Service Menus for Konqueror to allow sending
569 convert a Kmail addressbook to a Claws Mail
571 kmail2claws-mail_v2.pl
572 new version of the address book conversion script
573 for newer versions of Kmail/Kaddressbook
574 kmail-mailbox2claws-mail.pl
575 convert a Kmail mailbox into a Claws mail mailbox
577 a wrapper to mairix, to enable global searches in mail
580 import a Mew address book
582 search any searchable website for the selected text
583 nautilus2claws-mail.sh
584 enables sending files from the Nautilus file manager
587 enable OpenOffice to send documents through
589 outlook2claws-mail.pl
590 convert an Outlook contacts list to a Claws Mail
593 open messages in POPFile control center to edit their status
595 process a Claws Mail message and print it using enscript
596 if available or lpr if not
598 convert an addressbook exported from The Bat! into
599 a Claws Mail addressbook
601 integrate a Thunderbird folder tree into Claws Mail
603 Display various attachments as text
605 attempt to view an attachment as plain text
606 thunderbird-filters-convertor.pl
607 convert Thunderbird filtering rules
609 translators' tool that eases the creation of
612 decode UUencoded mails, for use with Actions
614 Decode uuencoded attachments and open them with OpenOffice
616 import an Evolution vCard
619 10. How to contribute
620 ---------------------
622 You are encourged to send patches via the Claws Mail bugzilla at
623 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
624 But please first read the patch guidelines here:
625 http://www.claws-mail.org/devel.php
627 If that's too troublesome, either contact Paul Mangan
628 <paul@claws-mail.org> or consider posting to the
629 Claws Mail-users mailing list.
630 http://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
632 Bugs can be reported with Claws' bugzilla at:
633 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
635 Of course, you can also post to the Claws Mail-users mailing list.
637 Also, we really try to incorporate good contributions, but sometimes we
638 don't have enough time. If the contribution is really big, or requires
639 a long time to stabilise, send a mail to Paul Mangan
640 <paul@claws-mail.org>. We can probably arrange access to the
645 11. How to request features
646 ---------------------------
648 Ask around in Claws Mail-users ML. Note that some developers may
649 have already thought about your feature and may, perhaps, be implementing
650 it, or the feature was already discussed and rejected for whatever reason.
651 You might want to go ahead and hack a patch for it. (That would be very
652 cool!) Another possibility is to add a request to our bugzilla, (severity:
654 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
657 12. Installing Claws Mail from CVS
658 --------------------------------------
663 To download the latest cvs cd to the directory where you wish to download
664 to and type the following information:
667 cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@claws-mail.org:/ co -r gtk2 claws
669 Later, when you want to update your local repository, you'll just have to
670 go back to the 'claws' directory, and type:
678 To compile and install use the following commands:
680 ./autogen.sh [add configure options as required]
682 make install [as root]
684 You will need a full set of development tools installed to be able to run
685 autogen.sh. See also ac/README.
728 2006-12-04 2.6.1 [first release as Claws Mail]
769 2004-05-31 0.9.11claws
770 2004-03-08 0.9.10claws
771 2004-02-06 0.9.9claws
772 2003-12-19 0.9.8claws
773 2003-11-26 0.9.7claws
774 2003-10-02 0.9.6claws
775 2003-09-10 0.9.5claws
776 2003-08-04 0.9.4claws
777 2003-07-12 0.9.3claws
778 2003-05-24 0.9.0claws
779 2003-03-12 0.8.11claws
780 2003-02-12 0.8.10claws
781 2003-01-24 0.8.9claws
782 2002-12-26 0.8.8claws
783 2002-12-23 0.8.7claws
784 2002-11-25 0.8.6claws
785 2002-10-07 0.8.5claws
786 2002-09-22 0.8.3claws
787 2002-08-28 0.8.2claws
788 2002-07-30 0.8.1claws
789 2002-07-23 0.8.0claws
790 2002-06-15 0.7.8claws
791 2002-05-18 0.7.6claws
792 2002-04-28 0.7.5claws
793 2002-03-11 0.7.4claws
794 2002-02-19 0.7.2claws
795 2002-02-14 0.7.1claws
796 2002-01-14 0.7.0claws
797 2001-12-16 0.6.6claws
798 2001-10-16 0.6.5claws8
799 2001-09-30 0.6.2claws
800 2001-08-14 0.6.1claws
801 2001-07-13 0.5.1claws
802 2001-07-01 0.5.0claws3
803 2001-06-16 0.4.99claws
804 2001-05-29 0.4.99claws3
805 2001-05-11 0.4.67claws1
812 http://www.claws-mail.org/
814 http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/
816 http://sourceforge.net/projects/sylpheed-claws/
818 http://www.claws-mail.org/downloads.php
820 http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
822 http://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
824 http://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
825 Users Mailing List archive
826 http://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/users/index.html
827 Commits Announcement List archive
828 http://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/commits/index.html
829 Bug/Patch/Feature Request Tracker
830 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
831 Internationalisation Status
832 http://www.claws-mail.org/i18n.php
834 http://www.claws-mail.org/sponsors.php
836 http://planet.claws-mail.org/
837 Claws Mail for Windows homepage
838 http://www.claws-mail.org/win32/