1 Claws Mail - a GTK lightweight and fast e-mail client
3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Copyright (C) 1999-2022 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 Includes your Gmail account contacts in the list generated for
146 Tab-address completion on compose window, using the GData library.
147 Gdata library is available from https://live.gnome.org/libgdata/.
150 Shows a warning when sending or queueing a message and a reference
151 to one or more keywords is found in the message text.
154 Displays sender avatars from https://www.libravatar.org/, from own
155 sender's domain if enabled or even an automatically generated one.
158 Renders HTML mails and HTML parts of multipart messages using the
159 using the litehtml library (http://www.litehtml.com/). External content
160 is blocked by default (including images) to avoid remote tracking.
163 Handles mailboxes in Mbox format using the libEtPan! library. Mbox
164 files can be added to the folder tree and used like regular mailboxes.
165 LibEtPan! is available from https://www.etpan.org/libetpan.html.
168 Manage sieve filters on a server using the ManageSieve protocol.
171 Writes a header summary to a log file for each mail received after
172 sorting. The file for the summary is ~/Mail/NewLog.
175 Provides various ways of notifying the user of new and unread email.
176 Current methods include: a banner, a popup window, a user command,
177 a message to a LCD daemon, a system tray icon and an indicator icon.
178 Sound notifications are also possible through libcanberra. Each method
179 can be customized in detail through the plugin preferences.
180 Indicator library is available from https://launchpad.net/libindicator/
181 and libcanberra from https://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libcanberra/.
184 Extends the filtering possibilities of Claws Mail. Provides a Perl 5
185 interface to Claws Mail's filtering mechanism, allowing the use of full
186 Perl power in email filters. A conversion script is provided to
187 translate user rules into perl rules suitable for this plugin.
188 Perl is available from http://www.perl.org/.
191 Displays Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript attachments
192 within the message view using Poppler. PostScript attachments are
193 converted to PDF on the fly by the 'gs' tool, which has to be installed
194 first. The 'gs' tool is available from https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
195 The Poppler library is available from https://poppler.freedesktop.org/.
198 Handles core PGP functions and is required by the PGP/Inline
199 and PGP/MIME plugins.
200 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, https://www.gnupg.org/software/gpgme/index.html.
203 Handles inline PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
204 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
206 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, https://www.gnupg.org/software/gpgme/index.html.
209 Handles PGP/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
210 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
212 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, https://www.gnupg.org/software/gpgme/index.html.
215 Provides Python scripting access to Claws Mail functions. A testing
216 console is also featured. Scripts can be saved to specific folders
217 for automatic loading on startup or being available as new menu items
218 under the '/Tools/Python scripts' menu.
219 Python is available from https://python.org/.
222 Creates mailboxes where newsfeeds in RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 or Atom format
223 can be added. Each newsfeed will create a folder with the appropriate
224 entries, fetched from the web. You can read them, and delete or keep
228 Handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
229 verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails.
232 Scans incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or LOCAL account using
233 SpamAssassin. It can optionally delete mail identified as spam or save
234 it to a designated folder.
235 SpamAssassin is available from https://spamassassin.apache.org/.
238 Reports spam messages to online spam harvesting sites. Sites suported
239 are https://www.signal-spam.fr/ and https://www.spamcop.net/. The Debian
240 mailing list spam nomination system is also supported.
243 Decodes attachments with 'application/ms-tnef' MIME type (also known
244 as "winmail.dat" files) in Claws Mail, using the ytnef library.
245 Decoded parts can be saved to files.
246 The ytnef library is available from https://github.com/Yeraze/ytnef.
249 Displays vCalendar messages. Only the meeting subset of the vCalendar
250 format is currently supported, which includes planning, sending and
251 receiving invitations and answering them. Public calendar (WebCal)
252 subscriptions, free/busy information export/import and reminding of
253 events is also supported.
256 Additional plugins can be found here:
257 https://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
262 The "actions" feature is a convenient way for the user to launch external
263 commands to process a complete message file including headers and body or
264 just one of its parts. It allows also the use of an external command to
265 filter the whole text or just a selected part in the message window or in
266 the compose window. This is a generic tool that allows to do any uncommon
267 actions on the messages, and thus extends the possibilities of Claws Mail.
268 For example, Claws Mail does not include the rot13 cyphering algorithm
269 popular in some newsgroups. It does not support uuencoded messages. As
270 all these features can be handled by external programs, the actions
271 provide a convenient way to use them from the menu bar.
276 To create a new action, go to Configuration -> Actions.... The "Action
277 Creation" dialog offers to enter the Menu name that will trigger the
278 command. The created menu will be found in the Tools -> Actions submenu.
279 By inserting a slash / in the menu name, you create a submenu.
281 The command is entered in the Command line entry. Note that Claws Mail
282 stores every single email in a separate file. This allows to use the
283 following syntax for the command:
285 * %f denotes the file name of the selected message. If you selected more
286 than one, then the command will be launched for each message with
287 the appropriate file name
288 * %F denotes the list of the file names of the selected message. If only
289 one message is selected, this amounts to %f, but if more messages
290 are selected, then the command will be launched only once with the
291 list of the file names. (You can use both %f and %F in one command:
292 then the command will be launched for each selected message with
293 the name of this message and with the list of all selected
294 messages. I did not find a practical example for this.)
295 * %p denotes the current selected message part of a multipart message.
296 The part is decoded accordingly. If the message is not a multipart
297 message, it denotes the message body.
298 * Prepending >: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
299 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window.
300 * Prepending *: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
301 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window. But in
302 contrast to prepending >, the entered text is hidden (useful when
304 * Appending an ampersand &: this will run the command asynchronously.
305 That means "fire and forget". Claws Mail won't wait for the
306 command to finish, nor will it catch its output or its error
308 * Prepending the vertical bar | (pipe-in): this will send the current
309 displayed text or the current selected text from the message view
310 or the compose window to the command standard input. The command
311 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
312 * Appending the vertical bar | (pipe-out): this will replace the current
313 displayed text or the current selected text from the message window
314 or the compose window by the command standard output. The command
315 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
317 Note: It is not possible to use actions containing %f, %F or %p from the
320 When a command is run, and unless it is run asynchronously, Claws Mail
321 will be insensitive to any interaction and it will wait for the command to
322 finish. If the command takes too long (5 seconds), it will popup a dialog
323 window allowing to stop it. This dialog will also be displayed as soon as
324 the command has some output: error messages or even its standard output
325 when the command is not a "pipe-out" command. When multiple commands are
326 being run, they are run in parallel and each command output is separated
327 from the outputs of the others.
332 Here are some examples that are listed in the same syntax as used for
333 storing the actions list. You can copy and past the definition in your
334 ~/.claws-mail/actionsrc file (exit Claws Mail before). The syntax
335 is very simple: one line per action, each action contains the menu name
336 and the command line separated by a colon and a space ": "
338 Purpose: rot13 cyphering
339 Definition: Rot13: |tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M|
340 Details: This will apply the rot13 cyphering algorithm to the
341 (selected) text in the message/compose view.
343 Purpose: Decoding uuencoded messages
344 Definition: UUdeview: xdeview %F&
345 Details: xdeview comes with uudeview. If an encoded file is split in
346 multiple messages, just select them all and run the command.
348 Purpose: Display uuencoded image
349 Definition: Display uuencoded: uudec %f&
350 Details: Displays uuencoded files. The uudec[1] script can be found in
351 the 'tools' directory of the distribution package.
353 Purpose: Alter messages
354 Definition: Edit message: gvim -f %F
355 Details: Allows editing of any received message. Can be used to remove
356 unneeded message parts, etc.
358 Purpose: Pretty format
359 Definition: Par: |par 72Tbgjqw74bEe B=._A_a 72bg|
360 Details: par is a utility that can pretty format any text. It does a
361 very good job in indenting quoted messages, and justifying
362 text. Used when composing a message
365 Definition: Part/Dillo: dillo %p&
366 Details: Browse the selected message part in Dillo.
369 [1] The uudec script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
370 distribution package. It needs uudecode and ImageMagick's display. The
371 latter can be replaced by any image viewer that can get input from
372 standard input. The script could also be modified to use temporary files
373 instead of standard input.
378 Claws has support for different icon sets. Several icon sets can be
379 downloaded from https://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
380 You will need to create a directory called 'themes' in your config
381 directory, unpack them into this directory, and then use the interface
382 to select them, /Configuration/Preferences/Display/Themes
384 This interface can also be used to install new themes.
387 5. Quick Search with extended search
388 ------------------------------------
389 Quick Search, with its powerful Extended search function,
390 enables searching through folder's messages.
392 Extended Search allows one to define criteria that messages must
393 have in order to match and be displayed in the summary view pane.
394 Search types titled From, Subject and To are self explanatory.
395 Search type extended allows one to use Claws Mail's powerful
396 filtering engine to select messages. Examples:
397 from regexpcase "foo"
398 subject regexp "Bug" & to regexp "claws-mail"
400 Additionally, it is possible to use simpler yet equally
401 powerful patterns for message selections. Mutt users will
402 immediately recognise most of the available patterns:
404 Pattern Parameter Selects
405 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
407 ag # messages whose age is greater than # days
408 al # messages whose age is lower than # days
409 agh # messages whose age is greather than # hours
410 alh # messages whose age is lower than # hours
411 b S messages which contain S in the message body
412 B S messages which contain S in the whole message
413 c S messages carbon-copied to S
414 C S message is either To: or Cc: to S
416 da "YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" messages whose date is after requested date
418 db "YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" messages whose date is before requested date
420 e S messages which contain S in the Sender field
421 E S true if execute "S" succeeds
422 f S messages originating from user S
424 h S messages which contain S in any header name
426 H S messages which contain S in the value of
428 ha messages which have attachments
429 i S messages which contain S in Message-Id header
430 I S messages which contain S in In-Reply-To
432 k # messages which are marked with color #
434 n S messages which are in newsgroup S
437 p incomplete messages (not entirely downloaded)
438 r messages which have been replied to
440 s S messages which contain S in subject
441 se # messages whose score is equal to # points
442 sg # messages whose score is greater than # points
443 sl # messages whose score is lower than # points
444 Se # messages whose size is equal to # bytes
445 Sg # messages whose size is greater than # bytes
446 Ss # messages whose size is smaller than # bytes
447 t S messages which have been sent to S
448 tg S messages with tags contain S
449 tagged messages which have tag(s)
452 v H V messages which contain V in header H
453 x S messages which contain S in References header
454 x "cmd args" messages returning 0 when passed to command
457 & logical AND operator
458 | logical OR operator
459 ! or ~ logical NOT operator
460 % case sensitive search
461 # match using regular expressions instead of
464 all filtering expressions are allowed, but cannot be mixed
465 through logical operators with the expressions above
467 It is possible to use logical operators AND (&), OR (|) and
468 NOT (! or ~). Case sensitive search is achieved with %.
472 f "john beavis" messages from john beavis
473 %f "John Beavis" messages from John Beavis (case sensitive)
474 ~s foo messages which do not have foo in the subject
475 f foo & ~s bar messages from foo that do not have bar in the subject
481 /Configuration/Preferences/Customize Toolbars lets you define the
482 toolbar you want. The configuration dialog enables you to set an icon,
483 an appropriate text, and map an action to it. Actions to choose
484 from are predefined. You can also have your "Claws Mail Actions"
485 (refer to "Actions" above) on your toolbar.
488 * Configuration->Actions
489 - add an entry "Dillo: dillo %p&"
490 * Configuration->Custom toolbar
491 - select Claws Mail Actions Feature
492 - select "Dillo: dillo %p&" from drop down list
493 - choose an icon and click ok
497 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
498 ------------------------------------
499 Messages over the configured size limit, (/[Account preferences]/
500 Receive/Message size limit), will be partially retrieved. These
501 messages will have a Notice View displayed (above the Message View),
502 informing of the partially retrieved state and the total size of the
503 message. The Notice View will also contain two buttons, 'Mark for
504 download' and 'Mark for deletion'. If the user clicks 'Mark for
505 download', the message will be downloaded in full at the next message
506 retrieval, (and the partial one deleted); if the user checks 'Mark for
507 deletion' it will be removed from the server after the normal delay
508 as specified in the POP3 account's 'Receive' preferences.
509 If a user moves a partially retrieved message to the Trash folder
510 it will be deleted on the server at the next retrieval after the
511 Trash folder has been emptied.
517 There's several options which are not widely used and were not
518 added to the configuration interface to avoid excessive bloat.
520 The complete and up to date list of hidden options can be found
521 on Hidden preferences section of Claws Mail Manual:
523 https://www.claws-mail.org/manual/claws-mail-manual.html#adv_hidden
528 Tools are small scripts which can help integrate Claws Mail with
529 other programs; perform format conversions between different kinds
530 of mailboxes, address books, etc.; be used in Claws Mail Actions for
531 a variety of purposes; or used in other programs to ease their
532 interoperability with Claws Mail.
534 You will find all the tools in the 'tools' directory and a detailed
535 description of the available scripts in 'tools/README.'
537 10. How to contribute
538 ---------------------
540 You are encouraged to send patches via the Claws Mail bugzilla at
541 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
542 But please first read the patch guidelines here:
543 https://www.claws-mail.org/devel.php
545 If that's too troublesome, either contact Paul Mangan
546 <paul@claws-mail.org> or consider posting to the
547 Claws Mail-users mailing list.
548 https://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
550 Bugs can be reported with Claws' bugzilla at:
551 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
553 Of course, you can also post to the Claws Mail-users mailing list.
555 Also, we really try to incorporate good contributions, but sometimes we
556 don't have enough time. If the contribution is really big, or requires
557 a long time to stabilise, send a mail to Paul Mangan
558 <paul@claws-mail.org>. We can probably arrange access to the
559 Claws Mail Git repository.
563 11. How to request features
564 ---------------------------
566 Ask around in Claws Mail-users ML. Note that some developers may
567 have already thought about your feature and may, perhaps, be implementing
568 it, or the feature was already discussed and rejected for whatever reason.
569 You might want to go ahead and hack a patch for it. (That would be very
570 cool!) Another possibility is to add a request to our bugzilla, (severity:
572 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
575 12. Installing Claws Mail from Git
576 --------------------------------------
581 To download the latest Git, cd to the directory where you wish to download
582 to and type the following information:
584 git clone https://git.claws-mail.org/readonly/claws.git
586 Later, when you want to update your local repository, you'll just have to
587 go back to the 'claws' directory, and type:
594 To compile and install use the following commands:
596 ./autogen.sh [add configure options as required]
598 make install [as root]
600 You will need a full set of development tools installed to be able to run
601 autogen.sh. See also ac/README.
678 2006-12-04 2.6.1 [first release as Claws Mail]
719 2004-05-31 0.9.11claws
720 2004-03-08 0.9.10claws
721 2004-02-06 0.9.9claws
722 2003-12-19 0.9.8claws
723 2003-11-26 0.9.7claws
724 2003-10-02 0.9.6claws
725 2003-09-10 0.9.5claws
726 2003-08-04 0.9.4claws
727 2003-07-12 0.9.3claws
728 2003-05-24 0.9.0claws
729 2003-03-12 0.8.11claws
730 2003-02-12 0.8.10claws
731 2003-01-24 0.8.9claws
732 2002-12-26 0.8.8claws
733 2002-12-23 0.8.7claws
734 2002-11-25 0.8.6claws
735 2002-10-07 0.8.5claws
736 2002-09-22 0.8.3claws
737 2002-08-28 0.8.2claws
738 2002-07-30 0.8.1claws
739 2002-07-23 0.8.0claws
740 2002-06-15 0.7.8claws
741 2002-05-18 0.7.6claws
742 2002-04-28 0.7.5claws
743 2002-03-11 0.7.4claws
744 2002-02-19 0.7.2claws
745 2002-02-14 0.7.1claws
746 2002-01-14 0.7.0claws
747 2001-12-16 0.6.6claws
748 2001-10-16 0.6.5claws8
749 2001-09-30 0.6.2claws
750 2001-08-14 0.6.1claws
751 2001-07-13 0.5.1claws
752 2001-07-01 0.5.0claws3
753 2001-06-16 0.4.99claws
754 2001-05-29 0.4.99claws3
755 2001-05-11 0.4.67claws1
762 https://www.claws-mail.org/
764 https://www.claws-mail.org/faq/
766 https://www.claws-mail.org/releases.php
767 Release Announcement Feed
768 https://www.claws-mail.org/releases.rss
770 https://www.claws-mail.org/news.php
772 https://www.claws-mail.org/downloads.php
774 https://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
776 https://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
778 https://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
779 Users Mailing List archive
780 https://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/users/index.html
781 Commits Announcement List archive
782 https://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/commits/index.html
783 Bug/Patch/Feature Request Tracker
784 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
785 Internationalisation Status
786 https://www.claws-mail.org/i18n.php
788 https://www.claws-mail.org/sponsors.php
789 Claws Mail for Windows homepage
790 https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/