1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2 <section id="ch_account">
3 <title>Account customisation</title>
5 <section id="account_basic">
6 <title>Basic preferences</title>
8 The first tab of the account preferences 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 Sylpheed-Claws 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.
11 In the Receive tab, you'll be able to change the default behaviour of Sylpheed-Claws, for example to leave messages on the server for a while, prevent downloading of too big mails, or specify whether you want the filtering rules to apply to this account's mails or not.
14 The Send tab contains preferences about special headers you'd want to add to your outgoing emails, like an X-Face, 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 it isn't available, you'll usually use POP-before-SMTP, which connects to the POP server (which is authenticated), disconnects, and sends the mail.
17 The Compose tab allows to change the behaviour of the Composition window when used with the account. For example, you can specify a signature to use automatically, and to set default Cc, Bcc or Reply-To address.
20 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 solving embarrassing situations.
23 The SSL tab is also a security-related one, although this time its setting applies to the transport of your emails and not their storage. Basically, using SSL encrypts the connection between you and the server, which prevents people from snooping on your connection and be able to read your mails and your password. SSL should be used if it is available.
27 <section id="account_types">
28 <title>Account types</title>
30 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 quite not the same, and most of the POP3 related options have no interest on IMAP, for example.
33 POP3 is one of the two most used protocol, and is available at almost any ISP on the earth. Its advantage is to allow you to download email locally, which means it'll be really fast to access once you have it on your hard disk. The disadvantage of POP3 is that it is more hard to receive your mail on multiple computers (you'll have to keep them on the server for a few days), and that you won't be able to keep track of which mail you read or not when using another computer.
36 IMAP is the second most used protocol, and its goal is to address the defaults of POP3. When using IMAP, your folder list and your emails are all kept on the server. This slows down a bit navigation as each mail is downloaded on demand, but when you use another computer or email client, you find back your emails the same way you left them, including their status (read, unread, flagged, ...).
39 News (NNTP) is the other name of Usenet, a worldwide infrastructure that allow people to subscribe and post to Newsgroups. The principle is about the same as web forums: public discussions centered on different interests. Usenet exists since the beginning of Internet and can be a great tool to find help or information, as well as a great tool to waste your time!
42 Finally, 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.
45 The account type 'None, SMTP only' is a special type of account as it won't retrive any email, but rather will allow you to create different identities. They're used to send out emails with various aliases for example.
49 <section id="account_multiple">
50 <title>Multiple accounts</title>
52 You can easily create multiples accounts in Sylpheed-Claws. For POP accounts, you can choose whether to receive the emails from the different accounts in the same folder(s) or not, using the Receive tab preference. For IMAP and News accounts, each of them will get its own subtree in the folder tree.
53 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 their preferences' Receive tab or in the 'G' column of your accounts' list.
57 <section id="account_morefilt">
58 <title>More filtering</title>
60 The filtering rules are global. That means that mails from various accounts can get filtered in other accounts' folders, for example a mail received over POP3 could get filtered in an IMAP account. This is either an useful feature or an annoying one, depending on what you want to do. If you'd rather avoid that, the best thing to do is to disable Filtering on the accounts, and use Processing rules in the various Inbox folders you specified.
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