1 Claws Mail - a GTK+ based, lightweight, and fast e-mail client
3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Copyright (C) 1999-2015 The Claws Mail Team and Hiroyuki Yamamoto
9 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
10 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
11 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
12 (at your option) any later version.
14 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
15 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
16 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
17 GNU General Public License for more details.
19 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
20 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
22 For more details see the file COPYING.
24 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
28 1. What is Claws Mail?
34 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
38 11. How to request features
39 12. Installing Claws from Git
44 1. What is Claws Mail?
45 --------------------------
47 Claws Mail (previously known as Sylpheed-Claws) is a lightweight and
48 highly configurable email client and news reader based on the GTK+
49 GUI toolkit, it runs on the X Window System.
51 Claws Mail is free software distributed under the GNU GPL.
53 To run Claws Mail use 'claws-mail' on the command line.
55 When claws-mail is executed for the first time a configuration
56 'Wizard' will appear prompting you for the minimum information
57 necessary to create a new account.
63 Claws Mail' capabilities are extended by plugins. It comes with
64 the following plugins included, all of which are built automatically
65 if the required libraries are present.
67 Plugins are installed in $PREFIX/lib/claws-mail/plugins/
68 and have a suffix of '.so'
69 To load a plugin go to '/Configuration/Plugins' and click
70 the 'Load Plugin' button.
71 Select the plugin that you want and click 'OK'
73 All plugin preferences can be found under
74 '/Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/'.
77 Notifies of new mail via the mail LED available on some laptops. The
78 LED can be set to blinking or on states when new mail is received.
79 Appropriate kernel modules have to be loaded first for this plugin to
80 work. Laptops supported are from ACER (acerhk and acer_acpi modules),
81 ASUS (asus_laptop and asus_acpi), IBM (ibm_acpi), Lenovo (tm_smapi)
82 and Fujitsu (apanel) manufacturers.
85 Saves mail addresses typed in the 'To', 'Cc' or 'Bcc' fields of
86 outgoing messages to a designated folder in the address book.
87 Addresses are saved only if not already present in the address book.
90 Archives mail folders using libarchive library. Folders can be archived
91 with or without compression (ZIP, GZIP or BZIP2) and also in several
92 formats (TAR, SHAR, PAX or CPIO).
93 Libarchive is available from http://www.libarchive.org/.
96 Selectively removes attachments from messages. Messages are permanently
97 modified by using this feature, so be careful!
100 Warns the user of possibly forgotten attachments when some keywords
101 are found in the outgoing messages. False positives (being warned when
102 no attachment is realy needed) exist, but some configuration options
103 can help to reduce their probability.
106 Enables the scanning of incoming mail received from a POP,
107 IMAP, or LOCAL account using Bogofilter. It can optionally
108 delete mail identified as spam or save it to a designated folder.
109 Bogofilter is a pure Bayesian filter, therefore it has better
110 speed performance than SpamAssassin but might catch less spam.
111 Bogofilter is available from http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/.
114 Checks all messages received from IMAP, POP or local accounts using
115 BSFilter, a bayesian spam filter program, which has to be installed
116 locally. Messages identified as spam can be deleted or saved to a
118 Bsfilter is available from http://sourceforge.jp/projects/bsfilter/.
121 Uses the Clam AntiVirus in daemon mode to scan received messages from
122 IMAP, POP or local accounts. Scanning is done through a socket to the
123 daemon, so it has to be previously configured to allow this.
124 Clam AntiVirus is available from http://www.clamav.net/.
127 Modifies downloaded messages and inserts special headers containing
128 some download information: UIDL, Claws Mail account name, POP server,
129 user ID and retrieval time. These headers can be used later for more
130 elaborate filtering or processing rules.
133 Renders HTML mails and HTML parts of multipart messages using the GTK+
134 port of the WebKit library. External content is blocked by default
135 (including images) to avoid remote tracking, but can be enabled either
136 globally or just on the displayed message.
137 GTK+ WebKit is available from http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKitGTK/.
140 Includes your Gmail account contacts in the list generated for
141 Tab-address completion on compose window, using the GData library.
142 Gdata library is available from https://live.gnome.org/libgdata/.
145 Displays sender avatars from https://www.libravatar.org/, from own
146 sender's domain if enabled or even an automatically generated one.
149 Handles mailboxes in Mbox format using the libEtPan! library. Mbox
150 files can be added to the folder tree and used like regular mailboxes.
151 LibEtPan! is available from http://www.etpan.org/.
154 Manage sieve filters on a server using the ManageSieve protocol.
157 Writes a header summary to a log file for each mail received after
158 sorting. The file for the summary is ~/Mail/NewLog.
161 Provides various ways of notifying the user of new and unread email.
162 Current methods include: a banner, a popup window, a user command,
163 a message to a LCD daemon, a system tray icon and an indicator icon.
164 Sound notifications are also possible through libcanberra. Each method
165 can be customized in detail through the plugin preferences.
166 Indicator library is available from https://launchpad.net/libindicator/
167 and libcanberra from http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libcanberra/.
170 Extends the filtering possibilities of Claws Mail. Provides a Perl 5
171 interface to Claws Mail's filtering mechanism, allowing the use of full
172 Perl power in email filters. A conversion script is provided to
173 translate user rules into perl rules suitable for this plugin.
174 Perl is available from http://www.perl.org/.
177 Displays Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript attachments
178 within the message view using Poppler. PostScript attachments are
179 converted to PDF on the fly by the 'gs' tool, which has to be installed
180 first. The 'gs' tool is available from http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
181 The Poppler library is available from http://poppler.freedesktop.org/.
184 Handles core PGP functions and is required by the PGP/Inline
185 and PGP/MIME plugins.
186 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
189 Handles inline PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
190 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
191 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
194 Handles PGP/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
195 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
196 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
199 Provides Python scripting access to Claws Mail functions. A testing
200 console is also featured. Scripts can be saved to specific folders
201 for automatic loading on startup or being available as new menu items
202 under the '/Tools/Python scripts' menu.
203 Python is available from http://python.org/.
206 Creates mailboxes where newsfeeds in RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 or Atom format
207 can be added. Each newsfeed will create a folder with the appropriate
208 entries, fetched from the web. You can read them, and delete or keep
212 Handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
213 verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails.
216 Scans incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or LOCAL account using
217 SpamAssassin. It can optionally delete mail identified as spam or save
218 it to a designated folder.
219 SpamAssassin is available from http://spamassassin.apache.org/.
222 Reports spam messages to online spam harvesting sites. Sites suported
223 are http://www.signal-spam.fr/ and http://www.spamcop.net/. The Debian
224 mailing list spam nomination system is also supported.
227 Decodes attachments with 'application/ms-tnef' MIME type (also known
228 as "winmail.dat" files) in Claws Mail, using the ytnef library.
229 Decoded parts can be saved to files.
230 The ytnef library is available from http://ytnef.sourceforge.net/.
233 Displays vCalendar messages. Only the meeting subset of the vCalendar
234 format is currently supported, which includes planning, sendding and
235 receiving invitations and answering them. Public calendar (WebCal)
236 subscriptions, free/busy information export/import and reminding of
237 events is also supported.
240 Additonal plugins can be found here:
241 http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
246 The "actions" feature is a convenient way for the user to launch external
247 commands to process a complete message file including headers and body or
248 just one of its parts. It allows also the use of an external command to
249 filter the whole text or just a selected part in the message window or in
250 the compose window. This is a generic tool that allows to do any uncommon
251 actions on the messages, and thus extends the possibilities of Claws Mail.
252 For example, Claws Mail does not include the rot13 cyphering algorithm
253 popular in some newsgroups. It does not support uuencoded messages. As
254 all these features can be handled by external programs, the actions
255 provide a convenient way to use them from the menu bar.
260 To create a new action, go to Configuration -> Actions.... The "Action
261 Creation" dialog offers to enter the Menu name that will trigger the
262 command. The created menu will be found in the Tools -> Actions submenu.
263 By inserting a slash / in the menu name, you create a submenu.
265 The command is entered in the Command line entry. Note that Claws Mail
266 stores every single email in a separate file. This allows to use the
267 following syntax for the command:
269 * %f denotes the file name of the selected message. If you selected more
270 than one, then the command will be launched for each message with
271 the appropriate file name
272 * %F denotes the list of the file names of the selected message. If only
273 one message is selected, this amounts to %f, but if more messages
274 are selected, then the command will be launched only once with the
275 list of the file names. (You can use both %f and %F in one command:
276 then the command will be launched for each selected message with
277 the name of this message and with the list of all selected
278 messages. I did not find a practical example for this.)
279 * %p denotes the current selected message part of a multipart message.
280 The part is decoded accordingly. If the message is not a multipart
281 message, it denotes the message body.
282 * Prepending >: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
283 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window.
284 * Prepending *: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
285 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window. But in
286 contrast to prepending >, the entered text is hidden (useful when
288 * Appending an ampersand &: this will run the command asynchronously.
289 That means "fire and forget". Claws Mail won't wait for the
290 command to finish, nor will it catch its output or its error
292 * Prepending the vertical bar | (pipe-in): this will send the current
293 displayed text or the current selected text from the message view
294 or the compose window to the command standard input. The command
295 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
296 * Appending the vertical bar | (pipe-out): this will replace the current
297 displayed text or the current selected text from the message window
298 or the compose window by the command standard output. The command
299 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
301 Note: It is not possible to use actions containing %f, %F or %p from the
304 When a command is run, and unless it is run asynchronously, Claws Mail
305 will be insensitive to any interaction and it will wait for the command to
306 finish. If the command takes too long (5 seconds), it will popup a dialog
307 window allowing to stop it. This dialog will also be displayed as soon as
308 the command has some output: error messages or even its standard output
309 when the command is not a "pipe-out" command. When multiple commands are
310 being run, they are run in parallel and each command output is separated
311 from the outputs of the others.
316 Here are some examples that are listed in the same syntax as used for
317 storing the actions list. You can copy and past the definition in your
318 ~/.claws-mail/actionsrc file (exit Claws Mail before). The syntax
319 is very simple: one line per action, each action contains the menu name
320 and the command line separated by a colon and a space ": "
322 Purpose: rot13 cyphering
323 Definition: Rot13: |tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M|
324 Details: This will apply the rot13 cyphering algorithm to the
325 (selected) text in the message/compose view.
327 Purpose: Decoding uuencoded messages
328 Definition: UUdeview: xdeview %F&
329 Details: xdeview comes with uudeview. If an encoded file is split in
330 multiple messages, just select them all and run the command.
332 Purpose: Display uuencoded image
333 Definition: Display uuencoded: uudec %f&
334 Details: Displays uuencoded files. The uudec[1] script can be found in
335 the 'tools' directory of the distribution package.
337 Purpose: Alter messages
338 Definition: Edit message: gvim -f %F
339 Details: Allows editing of any received message. Can be used to remove
340 unneeded message parts, etc.
342 Purpose: Pretty format
343 Definition: Par: |par 72Tbgjqw74bEe B=._A_a 72bg|
344 Details: par is a utility that can pretty format any text. It does a
345 very good job in indenting quoted messages, and justifying
346 text. Used when composing a message
349 Definition: Part/Dillo: dillo %p&
350 Details: Browse the selected message part in Dillo.
353 [1] The uudec script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
354 distribution package. It needs uudecode and ImageMagick's display. The
355 latter can be replaced by any image viewer that can get input from
356 standard input. The script could also be modified to use temporary files
357 instead of standard input.
362 Claws has support for different icon sets. Several icon sets can be
363 downloaded from http://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
364 You will need to create a directory called 'themes' in your config
365 directory, unpack them into this directory, and then use the interface
366 to select them, /Configuration/Preferences/Display/Themes
368 This interface can also be used to install new themes.
371 5. Quick Search with extended search
372 ------------------------------------
373 Quick Search, with its powerful Extended search function,
374 enables searching through folder's messages.
376 Extended Search allows one to define criteria that messages must
377 have in order to match and be displayed in the summary view pane.
378 Search types titled From, Subject and To are self explanatory.
379 Search type extended allows one to use Claws Mail's powerful
380 filtering engine to select messages. Examples:
381 from regexpcase "foo"
382 subject regexp "Bug" & to regexp "claws-mail"
384 Additionally, it is possible to use simpler yet equally
385 powerfull patterns for message selections. Mutt users will
386 immediately recognise most of the available patterns:
388 Pattern Parameter Selects
389 ----------------------------------------------------
391 ag # messages whose age is greater than #
392 al # messages whose age is lower than #
393 b S messages which contain S in the message body
394 B S messages which contain S in the whole message
395 c S messages carbon-copied to S
396 C S message is either to: or cc: to S
398 e S messages which contain S in the Sender field
399 E S true if execute "S" succeeds
400 f S messages originating from user S
402 h S messages which contain S in any header name or value
403 H S messages which contain S in the value of any header
404 i S messages which contain S in Message-Id header
405 I S messages which contain S in inreplyto header
406 k # messages which are marked with color #
408 n S messages which are in newsgroup S
411 r messages which have been replied to
413 s S messages which contain S in subject
414 se # messages whose score is equal to #
415 sg # messages whose score is greater than #
416 sl # messages whose score is lower than #
417 Se # messages whose size is equal to #
418 Sg # messages whose size is greater than #
419 Ss # messages whose size is smaller than #
420 t S messages which have been sent to S
421 tg S messages with tags containing S
422 tagged messages which are tagged
425 x S messages which contain S in References header
426 x "cmd args" messages returning 0 when passed to command
428 y S messages which contain S in X-Label header
430 & logical AND operator
431 | logical OR operator
432 ! or ~ logical NOT operator
433 % case sensitive search
435 all filtering expressions are allowed
438 S means regexp string
440 It is possible to use logical operators AND (&), OR (|) and
441 NOT (! or ~). Case sensitive search is achieved with %.
445 f "john beavis" messages from john beavis
446 %f "John Beavis" messages from John Beavis (case sensitive)
447 ~s foo messages which do not have foo in the subject
448 f foo & ~s bar messages from foo that do not have bar in thesubject
454 /Configuration/Preferences/Customize Toolbars lets you define the
455 toolbar you want. The configuration dialog enables you to set an icon,
456 an appropriate text, and map an action to it. Actions to choose
457 from are predefined. You can also have your "Claws Mail Actions"
458 (refer to "Actions" above) on your toolbar.
461 * Configuration->Actions
462 - add an entry "Dillo: dillo %p&"
463 * Configuration->Custom toolbar
464 - select Claws Mail Actions Feature
465 - select "Dillo: dillo %p&" from drop down list
466 - choose an icon and click ok
470 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
471 ------------------------------------
472 Messages over the configured size limit, (/[Account preferences]/
473 Receive/Message size limit), will be partially retrieved. These
474 messages will have a Notice View displayed (above the Message View),
475 informing of the partially retrieved state and the total size of the
476 message. The Notice View will also contain two buttons, 'Mark for
477 download' and 'Mark for deletion'. If the user clicks 'Mark for
478 download', the message will be downloaded in full at the next message
479 retrieval, (and the partial one deleted); if the user checks 'Mark for
480 deletion' it will be removed from the server after the normal delay
481 as specified in the POP3 account's 'Receive' preferences.
482 If a user moves a partially retrieved message to the Trash folder
483 it will be deleted on the server at the next retrieval after the
484 Trash folder has been emptied.
490 There's several options which are not widely used and were not
491 added to the configuration interface to avoid excesive bloat.
493 The complete and up to date list of hidden options can be found
494 on Hidden preferences section of Claws Mail Manual:
496 http://www.claws-mail.org/manual/claws-mail-manual.html#adv_hidden
500 You will find all of these tools in the 'tools' directory:
502 acroread2claws-mail.pl
503 send PDFs from Adobe Reader 7
505 import mbox files exported by calypso
506 claws-mail-compose-insert-files.pl
507 insert files into a new Compose window
509 convert mbox format to MH format
511 import Becky, Thunderbird, Kmail, Gmail and Fox Mail
514 convert a Eudora (v.3?) addressbook to vCard
517 convert sylpheed main's filter rules, (< 0.9.99),
518 into Claws' filtering format
520 convert sylpheed main's filter rules, (>= 0.9.99),
521 into Claws' filtering format
523 Replace/Add a message's Date field
525 Actions script to lookup the selected text on
526 Freshmeat www.freshmeat.net using the configured
529 convert a gif file to an xface
531 Actions script to lookup selected message-id on
532 google using mozilla.
534 Actions script to lookup up the selected text on
535 google using the configured browser
537 Service Menus for Konqueror to allow sending
540 convert a Kmail addressbook to a Claws Mail
542 kmail2claws-mail_v2.pl
543 new version of the address book conversion script
544 for newer versions of Kmail/Kaddressbook
545 kmail-mailbox2claws-mail.pl
546 convert a Kmail mailbox into a Claws mail mailbox
548 a wrapper to mairix, to enable global searches in mail
551 import a Mew address book
553 search any searchable website for the selected text
554 nautilus2claws-mail.sh
555 enables sending files from the Nautilus file manager
558 enable OpenOffice to send documents through
560 outlook2claws-mail.pl
561 convert an Outlook contacts list to a Claws Mail
564 open messages in POPFile control center to edit their status
566 process a Claws Mail message and print it using enscript
567 if available or lpr if not
569 convert an addressbook exported from The Bat! into
570 a Claws Mail addressbook
572 integrate a Thunderbird folder tree into Claws Mail
574 Display various attachments as text
576 attempt to view an attachment as plain text
577 thunderbird-filters-convertor.pl
578 convert Thunderbird filtering rules
580 translators' tool that eases the creation of
583 decode UUencoded mails, for use with Actions
585 Decode uuencoded attachments and open them with OpenOffice
587 import an Evolution vCard
590 10. How to contribute
591 ---------------------
593 You are encourged to send patches via the Claws Mail bugzilla at
594 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
595 But please first read the patch guidelines here:
596 http://www.claws-mail.org/devel.php
598 If that's too troublesome, either contact Paul Mangan
599 <paul@claws-mail.org> or consider posting to the
600 Claws Mail-users mailing list.
601 http://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
603 Bugs can be reported with Claws' bugzilla at:
604 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
606 Of course, you can also post to the Claws Mail-users mailing list.
608 Also, we really try to incorporate good contributions, but sometimes we
609 don't have enough time. If the contribution is really big, or requires
610 a long time to stabilise, send a mail to Paul Mangan
611 <paul@claws-mail.org>. We can probably arrange access to the
612 Claws Mail Git repository.
616 11. How to request features
617 ---------------------------
619 Ask around in Claws Mail-users ML. Note that some developers may
620 have already thought about your feature and may, perhaps, be implementing
621 it, or the feature was already discussed and rejected for whatever reason.
622 You might want to go ahead and hack a patch for it. (That would be very
623 cool!) Another possibility is to add a request to our bugzilla, (severity:
625 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
628 12. Installing Claws Mail from Git
629 --------------------------------------
634 To download the latest Git, cd to the directory where you wish to download
635 to and type the following information:
637 git clone http://git.claws-mail.org/readonly/claws.git
639 Later, when you want to update your local repository, you'll just have to
640 go back to the 'claws' directory, and type:
647 To compile and install use the following commands:
649 ./autogen.sh [add configure options as required]
651 make install [as root]
653 You will need a full set of development tools installed to be able to run
654 autogen.sh. See also ac/README.
708 2006-12-04 2.6.1 [first release as Claws Mail]
749 2004-05-31 0.9.11claws
750 2004-03-08 0.9.10claws
751 2004-02-06 0.9.9claws
752 2003-12-19 0.9.8claws
753 2003-11-26 0.9.7claws
754 2003-10-02 0.9.6claws
755 2003-09-10 0.9.5claws
756 2003-08-04 0.9.4claws
757 2003-07-12 0.9.3claws
758 2003-05-24 0.9.0claws
759 2003-03-12 0.8.11claws
760 2003-02-12 0.8.10claws
761 2003-01-24 0.8.9claws
762 2002-12-26 0.8.8claws
763 2002-12-23 0.8.7claws
764 2002-11-25 0.8.6claws
765 2002-10-07 0.8.5claws
766 2002-09-22 0.8.3claws
767 2002-08-28 0.8.2claws
768 2002-07-30 0.8.1claws
769 2002-07-23 0.8.0claws
770 2002-06-15 0.7.8claws
771 2002-05-18 0.7.6claws
772 2002-04-28 0.7.5claws
773 2002-03-11 0.7.4claws
774 2002-02-19 0.7.2claws
775 2002-02-14 0.7.1claws
776 2002-01-14 0.7.0claws
777 2001-12-16 0.6.6claws
778 2001-10-16 0.6.5claws8
779 2001-09-30 0.6.2claws
780 2001-08-14 0.6.1claws
781 2001-07-13 0.5.1claws
782 2001-07-01 0.5.0claws3
783 2001-06-16 0.4.99claws
784 2001-05-29 0.4.99claws3
785 2001-05-11 0.4.67claws1
792 http://www.claws-mail.org/
794 http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/
796 http://sourceforge.net/projects/claws-mail/
798 http://www.claws-mail.org/downloads.php
800 http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
802 http://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
804 http://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
805 Users Mailing List archive
806 http://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/users/index.html
807 Commits Announcement List archive
808 http://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/commits/index.html
809 Bug/Patch/Feature Request Tracker
810 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
811 Internationalisation Status
812 http://www.claws-mail.org/i18n.php
814 http://www.claws-mail.org/sponsors.php
816 http://planet.claws-mail.org/
817 Claws Mail for Windows homepage
818 http://www.claws-mail.org/win32/