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 http://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 http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/.
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 http://sourceforge.jp/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 http://www.clamav.net/.
125 Uses the Dillo browser (http://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 http://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 Displays sender avatars from https://www.libravatar.org/, from own
151 sender's domain if enabled or even an automatically generated one.
154 Renders HTML mails and HTML parts of multipart messages using the
155 using the litehtml library (http://www.litehtml.com/). External content
156 is blocked by default (including images) to avoid remote tracking.
159 Handles mailboxes in Mbox format using the libEtPan! library. Mbox
160 files can be added to the folder tree and used like regular mailboxes.
161 LibEtPan! is available from http://www.etpan.org/.
164 Manage sieve filters on a server using the ManageSieve protocol.
167 Writes a header summary to a log file for each mail received after
168 sorting. The file for the summary is ~/Mail/NewLog.
171 Provides various ways of notifying the user of new and unread email.
172 Current methods include: a banner, a popup window, a user command,
173 a message to a LCD daemon, a system tray icon and an indicator icon.
174 Sound notifications are also possible through libcanberra. Each method
175 can be customized in detail through the plugin preferences.
176 Indicator library is available from https://launchpad.net/libindicator/
177 and libcanberra from http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libcanberra/.
180 Extends the filtering possibilities of Claws Mail. Provides a Perl 5
181 interface to Claws Mail's filtering mechanism, allowing the use of full
182 Perl power in email filters. A conversion script is provided to
183 translate user rules into perl rules suitable for this plugin.
184 Perl is available from http://www.perl.org/.
187 Displays Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript attachments
188 within the message view using Poppler. PostScript attachments are
189 converted to PDF on the fly by the 'gs' tool, which has to be installed
190 first. The 'gs' tool is available from http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
191 The Poppler library is available from http://poppler.freedesktop.org/.
194 Handles core PGP functions and is required by the PGP/Inline
195 and PGP/MIME plugins.
196 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
199 Handles inline PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
200 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
201 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
204 Handles PGP/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
205 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
206 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
209 Provides Python scripting access to Claws Mail functions. A testing
210 console is also featured. Scripts can be saved to specific folders
211 for automatic loading on startup or being available as new menu items
212 under the '/Tools/Python scripts' menu.
213 Python is available from http://python.org/.
216 Creates mailboxes where newsfeeds in RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 or Atom format
217 can be added. Each newsfeed will create a folder with the appropriate
218 entries, fetched from the web. You can read them, and delete or keep
222 Handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
223 verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails.
226 Scans incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or LOCAL account using
227 SpamAssassin. It can optionally delete mail identified as spam or save
228 it to a designated folder.
229 SpamAssassin is available from http://spamassassin.apache.org/.
232 Reports spam messages to online spam harvesting sites. Sites suported
233 are http://www.signal-spam.fr/ and http://www.spamcop.net/. The Debian
234 mailing list spam nomination system is also supported.
237 Decodes attachments with 'application/ms-tnef' MIME type (also known
238 as "winmail.dat" files) in Claws Mail, using the ytnef library.
239 Decoded parts can be saved to files.
240 The ytnef library is available from http://ytnef.sourceforge.net/.
243 Displays vCalendar messages. Only the meeting subset of the vCalendar
244 format is currently supported, which includes planning, sendding and
245 receiving invitations and answering them. Public calendar (WebCal)
246 subscriptions, free/busy information export/import and reminding of
247 events is also supported.
250 Additonal plugins can be found here:
251 https://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
256 The "actions" feature is a convenient way for the user to launch external
257 commands to process a complete message file including headers and body or
258 just one of its parts. It allows also the use of an external command to
259 filter the whole text or just a selected part in the message window or in
260 the compose window. This is a generic tool that allows to do any uncommon
261 actions on the messages, and thus extends the possibilities of Claws Mail.
262 For example, Claws Mail does not include the rot13 cyphering algorithm
263 popular in some newsgroups. It does not support uuencoded messages. As
264 all these features can be handled by external programs, the actions
265 provide a convenient way to use them from the menu bar.
270 To create a new action, go to Configuration -> Actions.... The "Action
271 Creation" dialog offers to enter the Menu name that will trigger the
272 command. The created menu will be found in the Tools -> Actions submenu.
273 By inserting a slash / in the menu name, you create a submenu.
275 The command is entered in the Command line entry. Note that Claws Mail
276 stores every single email in a separate file. This allows to use the
277 following syntax for the command:
279 * %f denotes the file name of the selected message. If you selected more
280 than one, then the command will be launched for each message with
281 the appropriate file name
282 * %F denotes the list of the file names of the selected message. If only
283 one message is selected, this amounts to %f, but if more messages
284 are selected, then the command will be launched only once with the
285 list of the file names. (You can use both %f and %F in one command:
286 then the command will be launched for each selected message with
287 the name of this message and with the list of all selected
288 messages. I did not find a practical example for this.)
289 * %p denotes the current selected message part of a multipart message.
290 The part is decoded accordingly. If the message is not a multipart
291 message, it denotes the message body.
292 * Prepending >: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
293 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window.
294 * Prepending *: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
295 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window. But in
296 contrast to prepending >, the entered text is hidden (useful when
298 * Appending an ampersand &: this will run the command asynchronously.
299 That means "fire and forget". Claws Mail won't wait for the
300 command to finish, nor will it catch its output or its error
302 * Prepending the vertical bar | (pipe-in): this will send the current
303 displayed text or the current selected text from the message view
304 or the compose window to the command standard input. The command
305 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
306 * Appending the vertical bar | (pipe-out): this will replace the current
307 displayed text or the current selected text from the message window
308 or the compose window by the command standard output. The command
309 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
311 Note: It is not possible to use actions containing %f, %F or %p from the
314 When a command is run, and unless it is run asynchronously, Claws Mail
315 will be insensitive to any interaction and it will wait for the command to
316 finish. If the command takes too long (5 seconds), it will popup a dialog
317 window allowing to stop it. This dialog will also be displayed as soon as
318 the command has some output: error messages or even its standard output
319 when the command is not a "pipe-out" command. When multiple commands are
320 being run, they are run in parallel and each command output is separated
321 from the outputs of the others.
326 Here are some examples that are listed in the same syntax as used for
327 storing the actions list. You can copy and past the definition in your
328 ~/.claws-mail/actionsrc file (exit Claws Mail before). The syntax
329 is very simple: one line per action, each action contains the menu name
330 and the command line separated by a colon and a space ": "
332 Purpose: rot13 cyphering
333 Definition: Rot13: |tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M|
334 Details: This will apply the rot13 cyphering algorithm to the
335 (selected) text in the message/compose view.
337 Purpose: Decoding uuencoded messages
338 Definition: UUdeview: xdeview %F&
339 Details: xdeview comes with uudeview. If an encoded file is split in
340 multiple messages, just select them all and run the command.
342 Purpose: Display uuencoded image
343 Definition: Display uuencoded: uudec %f&
344 Details: Displays uuencoded files. The uudec[1] script can be found in
345 the 'tools' directory of the distribution package.
347 Purpose: Alter messages
348 Definition: Edit message: gvim -f %F
349 Details: Allows editing of any received message. Can be used to remove
350 unneeded message parts, etc.
352 Purpose: Pretty format
353 Definition: Par: |par 72Tbgjqw74bEe B=._A_a 72bg|
354 Details: par is a utility that can pretty format any text. It does a
355 very good job in indenting quoted messages, and justifying
356 text. Used when composing a message
359 Definition: Part/Dillo: dillo %p&
360 Details: Browse the selected message part in Dillo.
363 [1] The uudec script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
364 distribution package. It needs uudecode and ImageMagick's display. The
365 latter can be replaced by any image viewer that can get input from
366 standard input. The script could also be modified to use temporary files
367 instead of standard input.
372 Claws has support for different icon sets. Several icon sets can be
373 downloaded from https://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
374 You will need to create a directory called 'themes' in your config
375 directory, unpack them into this directory, and then use the interface
376 to select them, /Configuration/Preferences/Display/Themes
378 This interface can also be used to install new themes.
381 5. Quick Search with extended search
382 ------------------------------------
383 Quick Search, with its powerful Extended search function,
384 enables searching through folder's messages.
386 Extended Search allows one to define criteria that messages must
387 have in order to match and be displayed in the summary view pane.
388 Search types titled From, Subject and To are self explanatory.
389 Search type extended allows one to use Claws Mail's powerful
390 filtering engine to select messages. Examples:
391 from regexpcase "foo"
392 subject regexp "Bug" & to regexp "claws-mail"
394 Additionally, it is possible to use simpler yet equally
395 powerfull patterns for message selections. Mutt users will
396 immediately recognise most of the available patterns:
398 Pattern Parameter Selects
399 ----------------------------------------------------
401 ag # messages whose age is greater than #
402 al # messages whose age is lower than #
403 b S messages which contain S in the message body
404 B S messages which contain S in the whole message
405 c S messages carbon-copied to S
406 C S message is either to: or cc: to S
408 e S messages which contain S in the Sender field
409 E S true if execute "S" succeeds
410 f S messages originating from user S
412 h S messages which contain S in any header name or value
413 H S messages which contain S in the value of any header
414 i S messages which contain S in Message-Id header
415 I S messages which contain S in inreplyto header
416 k # messages which are marked with color #
418 n S messages which are in newsgroup S
421 r messages which have been replied to
423 s S messages which contain S in subject
424 se # messages whose score is equal to #
425 sg # messages whose score is greater than #
426 sl # messages whose score is lower than #
427 Se # messages whose size is equal to #
428 Sg # messages whose size is greater than #
429 Ss # messages whose size is smaller than #
430 t S messages which have been sent to S
431 tg S messages with tags containing S
432 tagged messages which are tagged
435 x S messages which contain S in References header
436 x "cmd args" messages returning 0 when passed to command
438 y S messages which contain S in X-Label header
440 & logical AND operator
441 | logical OR operator
442 ! or ~ logical NOT operator
443 % case sensitive search
445 all filtering expressions are allowed
448 S means regexp string
450 It is possible to use logical operators AND (&), OR (|) and
451 NOT (! or ~). Case sensitive search is achieved with %.
455 f "john beavis" messages from john beavis
456 %f "John Beavis" messages from John Beavis (case sensitive)
457 ~s foo messages which do not have foo in the subject
458 f foo & ~s bar messages from foo that do not have bar in thesubject
464 /Configuration/Preferences/Customize Toolbars lets you define the
465 toolbar you want. The configuration dialog enables you to set an icon,
466 an appropriate text, and map an action to it. Actions to choose
467 from are predefined. You can also have your "Claws Mail Actions"
468 (refer to "Actions" above) on your toolbar.
471 * Configuration->Actions
472 - add an entry "Dillo: dillo %p&"
473 * Configuration->Custom toolbar
474 - select Claws Mail Actions Feature
475 - select "Dillo: dillo %p&" from drop down list
476 - choose an icon and click ok
480 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
481 ------------------------------------
482 Messages over the configured size limit, (/[Account preferences]/
483 Receive/Message size limit), will be partially retrieved. These
484 messages will have a Notice View displayed (above the Message View),
485 informing of the partially retrieved state and the total size of the
486 message. The Notice View will also contain two buttons, 'Mark for
487 download' and 'Mark for deletion'. If the user clicks 'Mark for
488 download', the message will be downloaded in full at the next message
489 retrieval, (and the partial one deleted); if the user checks 'Mark for
490 deletion' it will be removed from the server after the normal delay
491 as specified in the POP3 account's 'Receive' preferences.
492 If a user moves a partially retrieved message to the Trash folder
493 it will be deleted on the server at the next retrieval after the
494 Trash folder has been emptied.
500 There's several options which are not widely used and were not
501 added to the configuration interface to avoid excesive bloat.
503 The complete and up to date list of hidden options can be found
504 on Hidden preferences section of Claws Mail Manual:
506 https://www.claws-mail.org/manual/claws-mail-manual.html#adv_hidden
511 Tools are small scripts which can help integrate Claws Mail with
512 other programs; perform format conversions between different kinds
513 of mailboxes, address books, etc.; be used in Claws Mail Actions for
514 a variety of purposes; or used in other programs to ease their
515 interoperability with Claws Mail.
517 You will find all the tools in the 'tools' directory and a detailed
518 description of the available scripts in 'tools/README.'
520 10. How to contribute
521 ---------------------
523 You are encourged to send patches via the Claws Mail bugzilla at
524 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
525 But please first read the patch guidelines here:
526 https://www.claws-mail.org/devel.php
528 If that's too troublesome, either contact Paul Mangan
529 <paul@claws-mail.org> or consider posting to the
530 Claws Mail-users mailing list.
531 https://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
533 Bugs can be reported with Claws' bugzilla at:
534 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
536 Of course, you can also post to the Claws Mail-users mailing list.
538 Also, we really try to incorporate good contributions, but sometimes we
539 don't have enough time. If the contribution is really big, or requires
540 a long time to stabilise, send a mail to Paul Mangan
541 <paul@claws-mail.org>. We can probably arrange access to the
542 Claws Mail Git repository.
546 11. How to request features
547 ---------------------------
549 Ask around in Claws Mail-users ML. Note that some developers may
550 have already thought about your feature and may, perhaps, be implementing
551 it, or the feature was already discussed and rejected for whatever reason.
552 You might want to go ahead and hack a patch for it. (That would be very
553 cool!) Another possibility is to add a request to our bugzilla, (severity:
555 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
558 12. Installing Claws Mail from Git
559 --------------------------------------
564 To download the latest Git, cd to the directory where you wish to download
565 to and type the following information:
567 git clone https://git.claws-mail.org/readonly/claws.git
569 Later, when you want to update your local repository, you'll just have to
570 go back to the 'claws' directory, and type:
577 To compile and install use the following commands:
579 ./autogen.sh [add configure options as required]
581 make install [as root]
583 You will need a full set of development tools installed to be able to run
584 autogen.sh. See also ac/README.
657 2006-12-04 2.6.1 [first release as Claws Mail]
698 2004-05-31 0.9.11claws
699 2004-03-08 0.9.10claws
700 2004-02-06 0.9.9claws
701 2003-12-19 0.9.8claws
702 2003-11-26 0.9.7claws
703 2003-10-02 0.9.6claws
704 2003-09-10 0.9.5claws
705 2003-08-04 0.9.4claws
706 2003-07-12 0.9.3claws
707 2003-05-24 0.9.0claws
708 2003-03-12 0.8.11claws
709 2003-02-12 0.8.10claws
710 2003-01-24 0.8.9claws
711 2002-12-26 0.8.8claws
712 2002-12-23 0.8.7claws
713 2002-11-25 0.8.6claws
714 2002-10-07 0.8.5claws
715 2002-09-22 0.8.3claws
716 2002-08-28 0.8.2claws
717 2002-07-30 0.8.1claws
718 2002-07-23 0.8.0claws
719 2002-06-15 0.7.8claws
720 2002-05-18 0.7.6claws
721 2002-04-28 0.7.5claws
722 2002-03-11 0.7.4claws
723 2002-02-19 0.7.2claws
724 2002-02-14 0.7.1claws
725 2002-01-14 0.7.0claws
726 2001-12-16 0.6.6claws
727 2001-10-16 0.6.5claws8
728 2001-09-30 0.6.2claws
729 2001-08-14 0.6.1claws
730 2001-07-13 0.5.1claws
731 2001-07-01 0.5.0claws3
732 2001-06-16 0.4.99claws
733 2001-05-29 0.4.99claws3
734 2001-05-11 0.4.67claws1
741 https://www.claws-mail.org/
743 https://www.claws-mail.org/faq/
745 https://www.claws-mail.org/releases.php
746 Release Announcement Feed
747 https://www.claws-mail.org/releases.rss
749 https://www.claws-mail.org/news.php
751 https://www.claws-mail.org/downloads.php
753 https://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
755 https://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
757 https://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
758 Users Mailing List archive
759 https://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/users/index.html
760 Commits Announcement List archive
761 https://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/commits/index.html
762 Bug/Patch/Feature Request Tracker
763 https://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
764 Internationalisation Status
765 https://www.claws-mail.org/i18n.php
767 https://www.claws-mail.org/sponsors.php
768 Claws Mail for Windows homepage
769 https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/