The Sylpheed-Claws FAQ
General information
What is Sylpheed? What is Sylpheed-Claws?
Sylpheed is an e-mail client (and news reader) based on GTK+, running on the X Window System, and aiming for:
Quick response
Graceful, and sophisticated interface
Easy configuration, intuitive operation
Abundant features
Sylpheed-Claws is the extended version of Sylpheed.
What are the differences between Sylpheed and Sylpheed-Claws?
For a list of features, and differences between Sylpheed and Sylpheed-Claws, see the online features page.
Where can I get Sylpheed-Claws?
See the Downloads page.
Who writes Sylpheed-Claws?
Sylpheed-Claws is developed by the Sylpheed-Claws Team. Sylpheed-Claws is also regularly syncronised with the original version of Sylpheed written by Hiroyuki Yamamoto.
What does the name Sylpheed mean?
It means 'light weight', like air. This comes from the name of the wind spirits, the Sylphs.
How does Sylpheed-Claws store mails?
Mails are stored in the MH mailfile format as used by MH and EMH. Maildir and mbox formats are supported via two plugins available on the Plugins page.
Does Sylpheed-Claws have mail filtering?
Yes. You can find it in Configuration
menu, Filtering...
option.
Can Sylpheed-Claws handle IMAP mail?
Yes.
Can Sylpheed-Claws handle local unix mailboxes?
Yes.
Can Sylpheed-Claws handle IPv6?
Yes, IPv6 is fully supported in Sylpheed-Claws.
How many POP3, News or IMAP accounts can I set up in Sylpheed-Claws?
The number is not limited. The limit is reached when your computer stops responding.
Does Sylpheed-Claws support encryption like GPG?
Yes. GPG is implemented and works fine. For activating it in Sylpheed-Claws, see Installation And Configuration section in this FAQ or the appropiate chapter in this manual.
How does Sylpheed-Claws check for MIME types?
Sylpheed-Claws uses the Mutt type of mime checking.
Does Sylpheed-Claws allow me to write HTML styled messages?
No. A discussion has gone around over 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 e-mail. Several patches have been made to facilitate better HTML handling in Sylpheed. You can find these patches at the Sylpheed Patch Page (see further down in the document).
Does Sylpheed-Claws have name completion in the address fields?
Yes. When you search for a name that starts with "don", type "don" (without the quotes) and press the TAB key. This will show you the correct name (when only one "don" exists in your addressbook. Otherwise a dropdown list appears, which allows you to select the name you want. E.g. Donald Duck, Don Johnson. But also e-mail addresses starting with "don" will appear in the list (like "don.giovanni@maffia.org").
Fine, but when I hit the TAB key I get an error message.
When you want to use name completion, make sure that there are names in your address book. If there are no names, even Sylpheed-Claws has a hard time completing something.
Why is Sylpheed-Claws so fast?
That's what it is designed for!
How can I send in patches, report bugs, talk about Sylpheed-Claws with others?
To talk to others, you should join the Sylpheed-Claws users' mailing list at SourceForge.
Can I import a mbox into Sylpheed-Claws' MH mailfolders?
Yes, just create or select the folder you want your mails in, and select Import mbox file...
in the File
menu.
Can I use procmail to sort my mails with the MH mail handling?
Yes. Just make sure that you add /.
to the end of a rule so procmail knows you are filtering into an MH mail folder. Example:
0:
* ^Subject:.*sylpheed
sylpheedmail/.
Check man procmail for details.
When I upgrade Sylpheed-Claws, are there things I should be aware of?
Yes. Anything you should be aware of is included in the Release Notes. Click the version number on this page to see them.
How can I quickly update the views in Sylpheed-Claws?
Just press Ctrl+Alt+U
or select Update summary
from the View
menu.
Are there any plans to port Sylpheed-Claws to GTK2?
Sylpheed-Claws already has a port to GTK2. The first release of this version was 1.9.6.
If you want to test the GTK2 CVS versions, you have to checkout the corresponding branch: cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sylpheed-claws co -r gtk2 sylpheed-claws.
Why does sylpheed allow me to open more than one instance at the same time for the same user on a network?
Sylpheed-Claws opens a Unix-domain socket using a name built from your TMPDIR path plus your UID. This socket is used to arbitrate multiple instances on a given machine. In Linux, at least, named Unix-domain sockets are known only locally, to the creating machine. Pointing your TMPDIR environment variable to /home/yours/tmp doesn't have the desired effect, as the socket definition would need to be propagated across the LAN and isn't.
Installation and configuration
What does it take to compile Sylpheed-Claws?
Any POSIX compliant UNIX or similar Operating System (eg. Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris), GTK+ 2.4 or later, a recent ANSI C compiler (gcc 2.7.2.3 should also work) otherwise ./configure will fail.
Optionally:
gdk-pixbuf (for built-in image view)
libcompface (for X-Face)
GPGME (for GnuPG)
GNU/aspell
OpenSSL
LDAP
iconv
libEtPan! (for IMAP support)
libpisock (for JPilot support in addressbook)
How do I set up Sylpheed-Claws?
When you run Sylpheed-Claws for the first time, it will ask you where you want to store your mailboxes. The default is ~/Mail. You can change this to anything you like as long as it is a valid directory name.
Please note: When Sylpheed-Claws is executed for the first time, it automatically creates the configuration files in the directory specified by the ./configure option --with-config-dir=XXX (default is $HOME/.sylpheed-claws/), and asks you the location of mailbox. The default is $HOME/Mail.
Why did the creation of the mailbox fail?
Sylpheed-Claws reports such an error if it can't create the default mailboxes (inbox, outbox, etc ...). This can be because ~/Mail already contains files with the same names. This occurs when switching from Kmail to Sylpheed-Claws, in this case backup and remove the existing Mail directory or use another name for the Sylpheed-Claws mail directory.
How do I set up an account?
After loading Sylpheed-Claws for the first time, you will be prompted to add an e-mail account. Simply fill in the appropriate fields, (name, email address, server details, etc). You can add more accounts by using the menu item /Configuration/Create new account
.
Why does Sylpheed not delete my mails when I press delete
? I set a filter, and Sylpheed does not filter? I moved a mail to a different mailbox and it did not move?
If you want immediate execution be sure to set the configuration option Execute immediately when moving or deleting messages
available in the /Configuration/Preferences
menu option, Common Interface
tab.
Can I set up special addresses/ports for my mailserver/newsserver?
Yes, you can. In the Account preferences
menu option, on the Advanced
tab you can specify the port addresses that you want to use.
Does Sylpheed-Claws have options for threading messages?
Yes. You can switch it on and off in the View
menu, just select Thread view
or press Ctrl+T
. (This only affects the currently selected folder; i.e. it is a folder property.)
Can I create multiple levels of subfolders to store mail?
Absolutely. This is not a problem. The only limitations are underlying filesystem capabilities.
Why isn't Sylpheed sending my mail out?
You need to create at least one account in order to send. (This is a wonderful gotcha on LAN installs with only a local mailbox feed).
Filtering and processing of messages