1 Claws Mail - a GTK lightweight and fast e-mail client
3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Copyright (C) 1999-2024 The Claws Mail Team and Hiroyuki Yamamoto
7 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
8 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
9 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
10 (at your option) any later version.
12 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
13 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
14 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
15 GNU General Public License for more details.
17 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
18 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
20 For more details see the file COPYING.
22 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
26 1. What is Claws Mail?
32 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
36 11. How to request features
37 12. Installing Claws from Git
42 1. What is Claws Mail?
43 --------------------------
45 Claws Mail is a lightweight and highly configurable email client
46 and news reader based on the GTK GUI toolkit, it runs on the X
49 Claws Mail is free software distributed under the GNU GPL.
51 To run Claws Mail use 'claws-mail' on the command line.
53 When claws-mail is executed for the first time a configuration
54 'Wizard' will appear prompting you for the minimum information
55 necessary to create a new account.
61 Claws Mail' capabilities are extended by plugins. It comes with
62 the following plugins included, all of which are built automatically
63 if the required libraries are present.
65 Plugins are installed in $PREFIX/lib/claws-mail/plugins/
66 and have a suffix of '.so'
67 To load a plugin go to '/Configuration/Plugins' and click
68 the 'Load Plugin' button.
69 Select the plugin that you want and click 'OK'
71 All plugin preferences can be found under
72 '/Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/'.
75 Notifies of new mail via the mail LED available on some laptops. The
76 LED can be set to blinking or on states when new mail is received.
77 Appropriate kernel modules have to be loaded first for this plugin to
78 work. Laptops supported are from ACER (acerhk and acer_acpi modules),
79 ASUS (asus_laptop and asus_acpi), IBM (ibm_acpi), Lenovo (tm_smapi)
80 and Fujitsu (apanel) manufacturers.
83 Saves mail addresses typed in the 'To', 'Cc' or 'Bcc' fields of
84 outgoing messages to a designated folder in the address book.
85 Addresses are saved only if not already present in the address book.
88 Archives mail folders using libarchive library. Folders can be archived
89 with or without compression (ZIP, GZIP or BZIP2) and also in several
90 formats (TAR, SHAR, PAX or CPIO).
91 Libarchive is available from https://www.libarchive.org/.
94 Selectively removes attachments from messages. Messages are permanently
95 modified by using this feature, so be careful!
98 Warns the user of possibly forgotten attachments when some keywords
99 are found in the outgoing messages. False positives (being warned when
100 no attachment is realy needed) exist, but some configuration options
101 can help to reduce their probability.
104 Enables the scanning of incoming mail received from a POP,
105 IMAP, or LOCAL account using Bogofilter. It can optionally
106 delete mail identified as spam or save it to a designated folder.
107 Bogofilter is a pure Bayesian filter, therefore it has better
108 speed performance than SpamAssassin but might catch less spam.
109 Bogofilter is available from https://bogofilter.sourceforge.io/.
112 Checks all messages received from IMAP, POP or local accounts using
113 BSFilter, a bayesian spam filter program, which has to be installed
114 locally. Messages identified as spam can be deleted or saved to a
116 Bsfilter is available from https://osdn.net/projects/bsfilter/.
119 Uses the Clam AntiVirus in daemon mode to scan received messages from
120 IMAP, POP or local accounts. Scanning is done through a socket to the
121 daemon, so it has to be previously configured to allow this.
122 Clam AntiVirus is available from https://www.clamav.net/.
125 Uses the Dillo browser (https://www.dillo.org/) to render HTML mails
126 and HTML parts of multipart messages. Dillo is started with
127 special options to embed its window inside Claws Mail's message
128 view and to render the HTML safely. If required, remote content
129 can be also retrieved.
132 Renders HTML mails and HTML parts of multipart messages using the
133 GTK port of the WebKit library. External content is blocked by
134 default (including images) to avoid remote tracking, but can be
135 enabled either globally or just on the displayed message. The GTK
136 WebKit is available from https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKitGTK.
139 Modifies downloaded messages and inserts special headers containing
140 some download information: UIDL, Claws Mail account name, POP server,
141 user ID and retrieval time. These headers can be used later for more
142 elaborate filtering or processing rules.
145 Shows a warning when sending or queueing a message and a reference
146 to one or more keywords is found in the message text.
149 Displays sender avatars from https://www.libravatar.org/, from own
150 sender's domain if enabled or even an automatically generated one.
153 Renders HTML mails and HTML parts of multipart messages using the
154 using the litehtml library (http://www.litehtml.com/). External content
155 is blocked by default (including images) to avoid remote tracking.
158 Handles mailboxes in Mbox format using the libEtPan! library. Mbox
159 files can be added to the folder tree and used like regular mailboxes.
160 LibEtPan! is available from https://www.etpan.org/libetpan.html.
163 Manage sieve filters on a server using the ManageSieve protocol.
166 Writes a header summary to a log file for each mail received after
167 sorting. The file for the summary is ~/Mail/NewLog.
170 Provides various ways of notifying the user of new and unread email.
171 Current methods include: a banner, a popup window, a user command,
172 a message to a LCD daemon, a system tray icon and an indicator icon.
173 Sound notifications are also possible through libcanberra. Each method
174 can be customized in detail through the plugin preferences.
175 Indicator library is available from https://launchpad.net/libindicator/
176 and libcanberra from https://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libcanberra/.
179 Extends the filtering possibilities of Claws Mail. Provides a Perl 5
180 interface to Claws Mail's filtering mechanism, allowing the use of full
181 Perl power in email filters. A conversion script is provided to
182 translate user rules into perl rules suitable for this plugin.
183 Perl is available from http://www.perl.org/.
186 Displays Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript attachments
187 within the message view using Poppler. PostScript attachments are
188 converted to PDF on the fly by the 'gs' tool, which has to be installed
189 first. The 'gs' tool is available from https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
190 The Poppler library is available from https://poppler.freedesktop.org/.
193 Handles core PGP functions and is required by the PGP/Inline
194 and PGP/MIME plugins.
195 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, https://www.gnupg.org/software/gpgme/index.html.
198 Handles inline PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
199 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
201 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, https://www.gnupg.org/software/gpgme/index.html.
204 Handles PGP/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
205 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
207 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, https://www.gnupg.org/software/gpgme/index.html.
210 Provides Python scripting access to Claws Mail functions. A testing
211 console is also featured. Scripts can be saved to specific folders
212 for automatic loading on startup or being available as new menu items
213 under the '/Tools/Python scripts' menu.
214 Python is available from https://python.org/.
217 Creates mailboxes where newsfeeds in RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 or Atom format
218 can be added. Each newsfeed will create a folder with the appropriate
219 entries, fetched from the web. You can read them, and delete or keep
223 Handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
224 verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails.
227 Scans incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or LOCAL account using
228 SpamAssassin. It can optionally delete mail identified as spam or save
229 it to a designated folder.
230 SpamAssassin is available from https://spamassassin.apache.org/.
233 Reports spam messages to online spam harvesting sites. Sites suported
234 are https://www.signal-spam.fr/ and https://www.spamcop.net/. The Debian
235 mailing list spam nomination system is also supported.
238 Decodes attachments with 'application/ms-tnef' MIME type (also known
239 as "winmail.dat" files) in Claws Mail, using the ytnef library.
240 Decoded parts can be saved to files.
241 The ytnef library is available from https://github.com/Yeraze/ytnef.
244 Displays vCalendar messages. Only the meeting subset of the vCalendar
245 format is currently supported, which includes planning, sending and
246 receiving invitations and answering them. Public calendar (WebCal)
247 subscriptions, free/busy information export/import and reminding of
248 events is also supported.
251 Additional plugins can be found here:
252 https://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
257 The "actions" feature is a convenient way for the user to launch external
258 commands to process a complete message file including headers and body or
259 just one of its parts. It allows also the use of an external command to
260 filter the whole text or just a selected part in the message window or in
261 the compose window. This is a generic tool that allows to do any uncommon
262 actions on the messages, and thus extends the possibilities of Claws Mail.
263 For example, Claws Mail does not include the rot13 cyphering algorithm
264 popular in some newsgroups. It does not support uuencoded messages. As
265 all these features can be handled by external programs, the actions
266 provide a convenient way to use them from the menu bar.
271 To create a new action, go to Configuration -> Actions.... The "Action
272 Creation" dialog offers to enter the Menu name that will trigger the
273 command. The created menu will be found in the Tools -> Actions submenu.
274 By inserting a slash / in the menu name, you create a submenu.
276 The command is entered in the Command line entry. Note that Claws Mail
277 stores every single email in a separate file. This allows to use the
278 following syntax for the command:
280 * %f denotes the file name of the selected message. If you selected more
281 than one, then the command will be launched for each message with
282 the appropriate file name
283 * %F denotes the list of the file names of the selected message. If only
284 one message is selected, this amounts to %f, but if more messages
285 are selected, then the command will be launched only once with the
286 list of the file names. (You can use both %f and %F in one command:
287 then the command will be launched for each selected message with
288 the name of this message and with the list of all selected
289 messages. I did not find a practical example for this.)
290 * %p denotes the current selected message part of a multipart message.
291 The part is decoded accordingly. If the message is not a multipart
292 message, it denotes the message body.
293 * Prepending >: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
294 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window.
295 * Prepending *: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
296 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window. But in
297 contrast to prepending >, the entered text is hidden (useful when
299 * Appending an ampersand &: this will run the command asynchronously.
300 That means "fire and forget". Claws Mail won't wait for the
301 command to finish, nor will it catch its output or its error
303 * Prepending the vertical bar | (pipe-in): this will send the current
304 displayed text or the current selected text from the message view
305 or the compose window to the command standard input. The command
306 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
307 * Appending the vertical bar | (pipe-out): this will replace the current
308 displayed text or the current selected text from the message window
309 or the compose window by the command standard output. The command
310 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
312 Note: It is not possible to use actions containing %f, %F or %p from the
315 When a command is run, and unless it is run asynchronously, Claws Mail
316 will be insensitive to any interaction and it will wait for the command to
317 finish. If the command takes too long (5 seconds), it will popup a dialog
318 window allowing to stop it. This dialog will also be displayed as soon as
319 the command has some output: error messages or even its standard output
320 when the command is not a "pipe-out" command. When multiple commands are
321 being run, they are run in parallel and each command output is separated
322 from the outputs of the others.
327 Here are some examples that are listed in the same syntax as used for
328 storing the actions list. You can copy and past the definition in your
329 ~/.claws-mail/actionsrc file (exit Claws Mail before). The syntax
330 is very simple: one line per action, each action contains the menu name
331 and the command line separated by a colon and a space ": "
333 Purpose: rot13 cyphering
334 Definition: Rot13: |tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M|
335 Details: This will apply the rot13 cyphering algorithm to the
336 (selected) text in the message/compose view.
338 Purpose: Decoding uuencoded messages
339 Definition: UUdeview: xdeview %F&
340 Details: xdeview comes with uudeview. If an encoded file is split in
341 multiple messages, just select them all and run the command.
343 Purpose: Display uuencoded image
344 Definition: Display uuencoded: uudec %f&
345 Details: Displays uuencoded files. The uudec[1] script can be found in
346 the 'tools' directory of the distribution package.
348 Purpose: Alter messages
349 Definition: Edit message: gvim -f %F
350 Details: Allows editing of any received message. Can be used to remove
351 unneeded message parts, etc.
353 Purpose: Pretty format
354 Definition: Par: |par 72Tbgjqw74bEe B=._A_a 72bg|
355 Details: par is a utility that can pretty format any text. It does a
356 very good job in indenting quoted messages, and justifying
357 text. Used when composing a message
360 Definition: Part/Dillo: dillo %p&
361 Details: Browse the selected message part in Dillo.
364 [1] The uudec script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
365 distribution package. It needs uudecode and ImageMagick's display. The
366 latter can be replaced by any image viewer that can get input from
367 standard input. The script could also be modified to use temporary files
368 instead of standard input.
373 Claws has support for different icon sets. Several icon sets can be
374 downloaded from https://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
375 You will need to create a directory called 'themes' in your config
376 directory, unpack them into this directory, and then use the interface
377 to select them, /Configuration/Preferences/Display/Themes
379 This interface can also be used to install new themes.
382 5. Quick Search with extended search
383 ------------------------------------
384 Quick Search, with its powerful Extended search function,
385 enables searching through folder's messages.
387 Extended Search allows one to define criteria that messages must
388 have in order to match and be displayed in the summary view pane.
389 Search types titled From, Subject and To are self explanatory.
390 Search type extended allows one to use Claws Mail's powerful
391 filtering engine to select messages. Examples:
392 from regexpcase "foo"
393 subject regexp "Bug" & to regexp "claws-mail"
395 Additionally, it is possible to use simpler yet equally
396 powerful patterns for message selections. Mutt users will
397 immediately recognise most of the available patterns:
399 Pattern Parameter Selects
400 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
402 ag # messages whose age is greater than # days
403 al # messages whose age is lower than # days
404 agh # messages whose age is greather than # hours
405 alh # messages whose age is lower than # hours
406 b S messages which contain S in the message body
407 B S messages which contain S in the whole message
408 c S messages carbon-copied to S
409 C S message is either To: or Cc: to S
411 da "YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" messages whose date is after requested date
413 db "YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" messages whose date is before requested date
415 e S messages which contain S in the Sender field
416 E S true if execute "S" succeeds
417 f S messages originating from user S
419 h S messages which contain S in any header name
421 H S messages which contain S in the value of
423 ha messages which have attachments
424 i S messages which contain S in Message-Id header
425 I S messages which contain S in In-Reply-To
427 k # messages which are marked with color #
429 n S messages which are in newsgroup S
432 p incomplete messages (not entirely downloaded)
433 r messages which have been replied to
435 s S messages which contain S in subject
436 se # messages whose score is equal to # points
437 sg # messages whose score is greater than # points
438 sl # messages whose score is lower than # points
439 Se # messages whose size is equal to # bytes
440 Sg # messages whose size is greater than # bytes
441 Ss # messages whose size is smaller than # bytes
442 t S messages which have been sent to S
443 tg S messages with tags contain S
444 tagged messages which have tag(s)
447 v H V messages which contain V in header H
448 x S messages which contain S in References header
449 x "cmd args" messages returning 0 when passed to command
452 & logical AND operator
453 | logical OR operator
454 ! or ~ logical NOT operator
455 % case sensitive search
456 # match using regular expressions instead of
459 all filtering expressions are allowed, but cannot be mixed
460 through logical operators with the expressions above
462 It is possible to use logical operators AND (&), OR (|) and
463 NOT (! or ~). Case sensitive search is achieved with %.
467 f "john beavis" messages from john beavis
468 %f "John Beavis" messages from John Beavis (case sensitive)
469 ~s foo messages which do not have foo in the subject
470 f foo & ~s bar messages from foo that do not have bar in the subject
476 /Configuration/Preferences/Customize Toolbars lets you define the
477 toolbar you want. The configuration dialog enables you to set an icon,
478 an appropriate text, and map an action to it. Actions to choose
479 from are predefined. You can also have your "Claws Mail Actions"
480 (refer to "Actions" above) on your toolbar.
483 * Configuration->Actions
484 - add an entry "Dillo: dillo %p&"
485 * Configuration->Custom toolbar
486 - select Claws Mail Actions Feature
487 - select "Dillo: dillo %p&" from drop down list
488 - choose an icon and click ok
492 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
493 ------------------------------------
494 Messages over the configured size limit, (/[Account preferences]/
495 Receive/Message size limit), will be partially retrieved. These
496 messages will have a Notice View displayed (above the Message View),
497 informing of the partially retrieved state and the total size of the
498 message. The Notice View will also contain two buttons, 'Mark for
499 download' and 'Mark for deletion'. If the user clicks 'Mark for
500 download', the message will be downloaded in full at the next message
501 retrieval, (and the partial one deleted); if the user checks 'Mark for
502 deletion' it will be removed from the server after the normal delay
503 as specified in the POP3 account's 'Receive' preferences.
504 If a user moves a partially retrieved message to the Trash folder
505 it will be deleted on the server at the next retrieval after the
506 Trash folder has been emptied.
512 There's several options which are not widely used and were not
513 added to the configuration interface to avoid excessive bloat.
515 The complete and up to date list of hidden options can be found
516 on Hidden preferences section of Claws Mail Manual:
518 https://www.claws-mail.org/manual/claws-mail-manual.html#adv_hidden
523 Tools are small scripts which can help integrate Claws Mail with
524 other programs; perform format conversions between different kinds
525 of mailboxes, address books, etc.; be used in Claws Mail Actions for
526 a variety of purposes; or used in other programs to ease their
527 interoperability with Claws Mail.
529 You will find all the tools in the 'tools' directory and a detailed
530 description of the available scripts in 'tools/README.'
532 10. How to contribute
533 ---------------------
535 You are encouraged to send patches via the Claws Mail bugzilla at
536 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
537 But please first read the patch guidelines here:
538 https://www.claws-mail.org/devel.php
540 If that's too troublesome, either contact Paul Mangan
541 <paul@claws-mail.org> or consider posting to the
542 Claws Mail-users mailing list.
543 https://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
545 Bugs can be reported with Claws' bugzilla at:
546 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
548 Of course, you can also post to the Claws Mail-users mailing list.
550 Also, we really try to incorporate good contributions, but sometimes we
551 don't have enough time. If the contribution is really big, or requires
552 a long time to stabilise, send a mail to Paul Mangan
553 <paul@claws-mail.org>. We can probably arrange access to the
554 Claws Mail Git repository.
558 11. How to request features
559 ---------------------------
561 Ask around in Claws Mail-users ML. Note that some developers may
562 have already thought about your feature and may, perhaps, be implementing
563 it, or the feature was already discussed and rejected for whatever reason.
564 You might want to go ahead and hack a patch for it. (That would be very
565 cool!) Another possibility is to add a request to our bugzilla, (severity:
567 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
570 12. Installing Claws Mail from Git
571 --------------------------------------
576 To download the latest Git, cd to the directory where you wish to download
577 to and type the following information:
579 git clone https://git.claws-mail.org/readonly/claws.git
581 Later, when you want to update your local repository, you'll just have to
582 go back to the 'claws' directory, and type:
589 To compile and install use the following commands:
591 ./autogen.sh [add configure options as required]
593 make install [as root]
595 You will need a full set of development tools installed to be able to run
596 autogen.sh. See also ac/README.
675 2006-12-04 2.6.1 [first release as Claws Mail]
716 2004-05-31 0.9.11claws
717 2004-03-08 0.9.10claws
718 2004-02-06 0.9.9claws
719 2003-12-19 0.9.8claws
720 2003-11-26 0.9.7claws
721 2003-10-02 0.9.6claws
722 2003-09-10 0.9.5claws
723 2003-08-04 0.9.4claws
724 2003-07-12 0.9.3claws
725 2003-05-24 0.9.0claws
726 2003-03-12 0.8.11claws
727 2003-02-12 0.8.10claws
728 2003-01-24 0.8.9claws
729 2002-12-26 0.8.8claws
730 2002-12-23 0.8.7claws
731 2002-11-25 0.8.6claws
732 2002-10-07 0.8.5claws
733 2002-09-22 0.8.3claws
734 2002-08-28 0.8.2claws
735 2002-07-30 0.8.1claws
736 2002-07-23 0.8.0claws
737 2002-06-15 0.7.8claws
738 2002-05-18 0.7.6claws
739 2002-04-28 0.7.5claws
740 2002-03-11 0.7.4claws
741 2002-02-19 0.7.2claws
742 2002-02-14 0.7.1claws
743 2002-01-14 0.7.0claws
744 2001-12-16 0.6.6claws
745 2001-10-16 0.6.5claws8
746 2001-09-30 0.6.2claws
747 2001-08-14 0.6.1claws
748 2001-07-13 0.5.1claws
749 2001-07-01 0.5.0claws3
750 2001-06-16 0.4.99claws
751 2001-05-29 0.4.99claws3
752 2001-05-11 0.4.67claws1
759 https://www.claws-mail.org/
761 https://www.claws-mail.org/faq/
763 https://www.claws-mail.org/releases.php
764 Release Announcement Feed
765 https://www.claws-mail.org/releases.rss
767 https://www.claws-mail.org/news.php
769 https://www.claws-mail.org/downloads.php
771 https://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
773 https://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
775 https://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
776 Users Mailing List archive
777 https://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/users/index.html
778 Commits Announcement List archive
779 https://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/commits/index.html
780 Bug/Patch/Feature Request Tracker
781 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
782 Internationalisation Status
783 https://www.claws-mail.org/i18n.php
785 https://www.claws-mail.org/sponsors.php
786 Claws Mail for Windows homepage
787 https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/