1 Claws Mail - a GTK+ based, lightweight, and fast e-mail client
3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Copyright (C) 1999-2015 Hiroyuki Yamamoto <hiro-y@kcn.ne.jp> and the
8 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
9 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
10 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
11 (at your option) any later version.
13 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
14 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
15 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
16 GNU General Public License for more details.
18 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
19 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
21 For more details see the file COPYING.
23 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
27 1. What is Claws Mail?
33 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
37 11. How to request features
38 12. Installing Claws from Git
43 1. What is Claws Mail?
44 --------------------------
46 Claws Mail (previously known as Sylpheed-Claws) is a lightweight and
47 highly configurable email client and news reader based on the GTK+
48 GUI toolkit, it runs on the X Window System.
50 Claws Mail is free software distributed under the GNU GPL.
52 To run Claws Mail use 'claws-mail' on the command line.
54 When claws-mail is executed for the first time a configuration
55 'Wizard' will appear prompting you for the minimum information
56 necessary to create a new account.
62 Claws Mail' capabilities are extended by plugins. It comes with
63 the following plugins included, all of which are built automatically
64 if the required libraries are present.
66 Plugins are installed in $PREFIX/lib/claws-mail/plugins/
67 and have a suffix of '.so'
68 To load a plugin go to '/Configuration/Plugins' and click
69 the 'Load Plugin' button.
70 Select the plugin that you want and click 'OK'
72 All plugin preferences can be found under
73 '/Configuration/Preferences/Plugins/'.
76 Notifies of new mail via the mail LED available on some laptops. The
77 LED can be set to blinking or on states when new mail is received.
78 Appropriate kernel modules have to be loaded first for this plugin to
79 work. Laptops supported are from ACER (acerhk and acer_acpi modules),
80 ASUS (asus_laptop and asus_acpi), IBM (ibm_acpi), Lenovo (tm_smapi)
81 and Fujitsu (apanel) manufacturers.
84 Saves mail addresses typed in the 'To', 'Cc' or 'Bcc' fields of
85 outgoing messages to a designated folder in the address book.
86 Addresses are saved only if not already present in the address book.
89 Archives mail folders using libarchive library. Folders can be archived
90 with or without compression (ZIP, GZIP or BZIP2) and also in several
91 formats (TAR, SHAR, PAX or CPIO).
92 Libarchive is available from http://www.libarchive.org/.
95 Selectively removes attachments from messages. Messages are permanently
96 modified by using this feature, so be careful!
99 Warns the user of possibly forgotten attachments when some keywords
100 are found in the outgoing messages. False positives (being warned when
101 no attachment is realy needed) exist, but some configuration options
102 can help to reduce their probability.
105 Enables the scanning of incoming mail received from a POP,
106 IMAP, or LOCAL account using Bogofilter. It can optionally
107 delete mail identified as spam or save it to a designated folder.
108 Bogofilter is a pure Bayesian filter, therefore it has better
109 speed performance than SpamAssassin but might catch less spam.
110 Bogofilter is available from http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/.
113 Checks all messages received from IMAP, POP or local accounts using
114 BSFilter, a bayesian spam filter program, which has to be installed
115 locally. Messages identified as spam can be deleted or saved to a
117 Bsfilter is available from http://sourceforge.jp/projects/bsfilter/.
120 Uses the Clam AntiVirus in daemon mode to scan received messages from
121 IMAP, POP or local accounts. Scanning is done through a socket to the
122 daemon, so it has to be previously configured to allow this.
123 Clam AntiVirus is available from http://www.clamav.net/.
126 Modifies downloaded messages and inserts special headers containing
127 some download information: UIDL, Claws Mail account name, POP server,
128 user ID and retrieval time. These headers can be used later for more
129 elaborate filtering or processing rules.
132 Renders HTML mails and HTML parts of multipart messages using the GTK+
133 port of the WebKit library. External content is blocked by default
134 (including images) to avoid remote tracking, but can be enabled either
135 globally or just on the displayed message.
136 GTK+ WebKit is available from http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKitGTK/.
139 Includes your Gmail account contacts in the list generated for
140 Tab-address completion on compose window, using the GData library.
141 Gdata library is available from https://live.gnome.org/libgdata/.
144 Displays sender avatars from https://www.libravatar.org/, from own
145 sender's domain if enabled or even an automatically generated one.
148 Handles mailboxes in Mbox format using the libEtPan! library. Mbox
149 files can be added to the folder tree and used like regular mailboxes.
150 LibEtPan! is available from http://www.etpan.org/.
153 Manage sieve filters on a server using the ManageSieve protocol.
156 Writes a header summary to a log file for each mail received after
157 sorting. The file for the summary is ~/Mail/NewLog.
160 Provides various ways of notifying the user of new and unread email.
161 Current methods include: a banner, a popup window, a user command,
162 a message to a LCD daemon, a system tray icon and an indicator icon.
163 Sound notifications are also possible through libcanberra. Each method
164 can be customized in detail through the plugin preferences.
165 Indicator library is available from https://launchpad.net/libindicator/
166 and libcanberra from http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libcanberra/.
169 Extends the filtering possibilities of Claws Mail. Provides a Perl 5
170 interface to Claws Mail's filtering mechanism, allowing the use of full
171 Perl power in email filters. A conversion script is provided to
172 translate user rules into perl rules suitable for this plugin.
173 Perl is available from http://www.perl.org/.
176 Displays Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript attachments
177 within the message view using Poppler. PostScript attachments are
178 converted to PDF on the fly by the 'gs' tool, which has to be installed
179 first. The 'gs' tool is available from http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
180 The Poppler library is available from http://poppler.freedesktop.org/.
183 Handles core PGP functions and is required by the PGP/Inline
184 and PGP/MIME plugins.
185 Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
188 Handles inline PGP signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
189 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
190 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
193 Handles PGP/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can
194 decrypt mails, verify signatures or sign and encrypt your
195 own mails. Uses GnuPG/GPGME, ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/.
198 Provides Python scripting access to Claws Mail functions. A testing
199 console is also featured. Scripts can be saved to specific folders
200 for automatic loading on startup or being available as new menu items
201 under the '/Tools/Python scripts' menu.
202 Python is available from http://python.org/.
205 Creates mailboxes where newsfeeds in RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 or Atom format
206 can be added. Each newsfeed will create a folder with the appropriate
207 entries, fetched from the web. You can read them, and delete or keep
211 Handles S/MIME signed and/or encrypted mails. You can decrypt mails,
212 verify signatures or sign and encrypt your own mails.
215 Scans incoming mail received from a POP, IMAP or LOCAL account using
216 SpamAssassin. It can optionally delete mail identified as spam or save
217 it to a designated folder.
218 SpamAssassin is available from http://spamassassin.apache.org/.
221 Reports spam messages to online spam harvesting sites. Sites suported
222 are http://www.signal-spam.fr/ and http://www.spamcop.net/. The Debian
223 mailing list spam nomination system is also supported.
226 Decodes attachments with 'application/ms-tnef' MIME type (also known
227 as "winmail.dat" files) in Claws Mail, using the ytnef library.
228 Decoded parts can be saved to files.
229 The ytnef library is available from http://ytnef.sourceforge.net/.
232 Displays vCalendar messages. Only the meeting subset of the vCalendar
233 format is currently supported, which includes planning, sendding and
234 receiving invitations and answering them. Public calendar (WebCal)
235 subscriptions, free/busy information export/import and reminding of
236 events is also supported.
239 Additonal plugins can be found here:
240 http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
245 The "actions" feature is a convenient way for the user to launch external
246 commands to process a complete message file including headers and body or
247 just one of its parts. It allows also the use of an external command to
248 filter the whole text or just a selected part in the message window or in
249 the compose window. This is a generic tool that allows to do any uncommon
250 actions on the messages, and thus extends the possibilities of Claws Mail.
251 For example, Claws Mail does not include the rot13 cyphering algorithm
252 popular in some newsgroups. It does not support uuencoded messages. As
253 all these features can be handled by external programs, the actions
254 provide a convenient way to use them from the menu bar.
259 To create a new action, go to Configuration -> Actions.... The "Action
260 Creation" dialog offers to enter the Menu name that will trigger the
261 command. The created menu will be found in the Tools -> Actions submenu.
262 By inserting a slash / in the menu name, you create a submenu.
264 The command is entered in the Command line entry. Note that Claws Mail
265 stores every single email in a separate file. This allows to use the
266 following syntax for the command:
268 * %f denotes the file name of the selected message. If you selected more
269 than one, then the command will be launched for each message with
270 the appropriate file name
271 * %F denotes the list of the file names of the selected message. If only
272 one message is selected, this amounts to %f, but if more messages
273 are selected, then the command will be launched only once with the
274 list of the file names. (You can use both %f and %F in one command:
275 then the command will be launched for each selected message with
276 the name of this message and with the list of all selected
277 messages. I did not find a practical example for this.)
278 * %p denotes the current selected message part of a multipart message.
279 The part is decoded accordingly. If the message is not a multipart
280 message, it denotes the message body.
281 * Prepending >: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
282 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window.
283 * Prepending *: this will allow you to send to the command's standard
284 input a text that you will enter in a dialog window. But in
285 contrast to prepending >, the entered text is hidden (useful when
287 * Appending an ampersand &: this will run the command asynchronously.
288 That means "fire and forget". Claws Mail won't wait for the
289 command to finish, nor will it catch its output or its error
291 * Prepending the vertical bar | (pipe-in): this will send the current
292 displayed text or the current selected text from the message view
293 or the compose window to the command standard input. The command
294 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
295 * Appending the vertical bar | (pipe-out): this will replace the current
296 displayed text or the current selected text from the message window
297 or the compose window by the command standard output. The command
298 will silently fail if more than one message is selected.
300 Note: It is not possible to use actions containing %f, %F or %p from the
303 When a command is run, and unless it is run asynchronously, Claws Mail
304 will be insensitive to any interaction and it will wait for the command to
305 finish. If the command takes too long (5 seconds), it will popup a dialog
306 window allowing to stop it. This dialog will also be displayed as soon as
307 the command has some output: error messages or even its standard output
308 when the command is not a "pipe-out" command. When multiple commands are
309 being run, they are run in parallel and each command output is separated
310 from the outputs of the others.
315 Here are some examples that are listed in the same syntax as used for
316 storing the actions list. You can copy and past the definition in your
317 ~/.claws-mail/actionsrc file (exit Claws Mail before). The syntax
318 is very simple: one line per action, each action contains the menu name
319 and the command line separated by a colon and a space ": "
321 Purpose: rot13 cyphering
322 Definition: Rot13: |tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M|
323 Details: This will apply the rot13 cyphering algorithm to the
324 (selected) text in the message/compose view.
326 Purpose: Decoding uuencoded messages
327 Definition: UUdeview: xdeview %F&
328 Details: xdeview comes with uudeview. If an encoded file is split in
329 multiple messages, just select them all and run the command.
331 Purpose: Display uuencoded image
332 Definition: Display uuencoded: uudec %f&
333 Details: Displays uuencoded files. The uudec[1] script can be found in
334 the 'tools' directory of the distribution package.
336 Purpose: Alter messages
337 Definition: Edit message: gvim -f %F
338 Details: Allows editing of any received message. Can be used to remove
339 unneeded message parts, etc.
341 Purpose: Pretty format
342 Definition: Par: |par 72Tbgjqw74bEe B=._A_a 72bg|
343 Details: par is a utility that can pretty format any text. It does a
344 very good job in indenting quoted messages, and justifying
345 text. Used when composing a message
348 Definition: Part/Dillo: dillo %p&
349 Details: Browse the selected message part in Dillo.
352 [1] The uudec script can be found in the 'tools' directory of the
353 distribution package. It needs uudecode and ImageMagick's display. The
354 latter can be replaced by any image viewer that can get input from
355 standard input. The script could also be modified to use temporary files
356 instead of standard input.
361 Claws has support for different icon sets. Several icon sets can be
362 downloaded from http://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
363 You will need to create a directory called 'themes' in your config
364 directory, unpack them into this directory, and then use the interface
365 to select them, /Configuration/Preferences/Display/Themes
367 This interface can also be used to install new themes.
370 5. Quick Search with extended search
371 ------------------------------------
372 Quick Search, with its powerful Extended search function,
373 enables searching through folder's messages.
375 Extended Search allows one to define criteria that messages must
376 have in order to match and be displayed in the summary view pane.
377 Search types titled From, Subject and To are self explanatory.
378 Search type extended allows one to use Claws Mail's powerful
379 filtering engine to select messages. Examples:
380 from regexpcase "foo"
381 subject regexp "Bug" & to regexp "claws-mail"
383 Additionally, it is possible to use simpler yet equally
384 powerfull patterns for message selections. Mutt users will
385 immediately recognise most of the available patterns:
387 Pattern Parameter Selects
388 ----------------------------------------------------
390 ag # messages whose age is greater than #
391 al # messages whose age is lower than #
392 b S messages which contain S in the message body
393 B S messages which contain S in the whole message
394 c S messages carbon-copied to S
395 C S message is either to: or cc: to S
397 e S messages which contain S in the Sender field
398 E S true if execute "S" succeeds
399 f S messages originating from user S
401 h S messages which contain S in any header name or value
402 H S messages which contain S in the value of any header
403 i S messages which contain S in Message-Id header
404 I S messages which contain S in inreplyto header
405 k # messages which are marked with color #
407 n S messages which are in newsgroup S
410 r messages which have been replied to
412 s S messages which contain S in subject
413 se # messages whose score is equal to #
414 sg # messages whose score is greater than #
415 sl # messages whose score is lower than #
416 Se # messages whose size is equal to #
417 Sg # messages whose size is greater than #
418 Ss # messages whose size is smaller than #
419 t S messages which have been sent to S
420 tg S messages with tags containing S
421 tagged messages which are tagged
424 x S messages which contain S in References header
425 x "cmd args" messages returning 0 when passed to command
427 y S messages which contain S in X-Label header
429 & logical AND operator
430 | logical OR operator
431 ! or ~ logical NOT operator
432 % case sensitive search
434 all filtering expressions are allowed
437 S means regexp string
439 It is possible to use logical operators AND (&), OR (|) and
440 NOT (! or ~). Case sensitive search is achieved with %.
444 f "john beavis" messages from john beavis
445 %f "John Beavis" messages from John Beavis (case sensitive)
446 ~s foo messages which do not have foo in the subject
447 f foo & ~s bar messages from foo that do not have bar in thesubject
453 /Configuration/Preferences/Customize Toolbars lets you define the
454 toolbar you want. The configuration dialog enables you to set an icon,
455 an appropriate text, and map an action to it. Actions to choose
456 from are predefined. You can also have your "Claws Mail Actions"
457 (refer to "Actions" above) on your toolbar.
460 * Configuration->Actions
461 - add an entry "Dillo: dillo %p&"
462 * Configuration->Custom toolbar
463 - select Claws Mail Actions Feature
464 - select "Dillo: dillo %p&" from drop down list
465 - choose an icon and click ok
469 7. Partial downloading of POP3 mails
470 ------------------------------------
471 Messages over the configured size limit, (/[Account preferences]/
472 Receive/Message size limit), will be partially retrieved. These
473 messages will have a Notice View displayed (above the Message View),
474 informing of the partially retrieved state and the total size of the
475 message. The Notice View will also contain two buttons, 'Mark for
476 download' and 'Mark for deletion'. If the user clicks 'Mark for
477 download', the message will be downloaded in full at the next message
478 retrieval, (and the partial one deleted); if the user checks 'Mark for
479 deletion' it will be removed from the server after the normal delay
480 as specified in the POP3 account's 'Receive' preferences.
481 If a user moves a partially retrieved message to the Trash folder
482 it will be deleted on the server at the next retrieval after the
483 Trash folder has been emptied.
489 There's several options which are not widely used and were not
490 added to the configuration interface to avoid excesive bloat.
492 The complete and up to date list of hidden options can be found
493 on Hidden preferences section of Claws Mail Manual:
495 http://www.claws-mail.org/manual/claws-mail-manual.html#adv_hidden
499 You will find all of these tools in the 'tools' directory:
501 acroread2claws-mail.pl
502 send PDFs from Adobe Reader 7
504 import mbox files exported by calypso
505 claws-mail-compose-insert-files.pl
506 insert files into a new Compose window
508 convert mbox format to MH format
510 import Becky, Thunderbird, Kmail, Gmail and Fox Mail
513 convert a Eudora (v.3?) addressbook to vCard
516 convert sylpheed main's filter rules, (< 0.9.99),
517 into Claws' filtering format
519 convert sylpheed main's filter rules, (>= 0.9.99),
520 into Claws' filtering format
522 Replace/Add a message's Date field
524 Actions script to lookup the selected text on
525 Freshmeat www.freshmeat.net using the configured
528 convert a gif file to an xface
530 Actions script to lookup selected message-id on
531 google using mozilla.
533 Actions script to lookup up the selected text on
534 google using the configured browser
536 Service Menus for Konqueror to allow sending
539 convert a Kmail addressbook to a Claws Mail
541 kmail2claws-mail_v2.pl
542 new version of the address book conversion script
543 for newer versions of Kmail/Kaddressbook
544 kmail-mailbox2claws-mail.pl
545 convert a Kmail mailbox into a Claws mail mailbox
547 a wrapper to mairix, to enable global searches in mail
550 import a Mew address book
552 search any searchable website for the selected text
553 nautilus2claws-mail.sh
554 enables sending files from the Nautilus file manager
557 enable OpenOffice to send documents through
559 outlook2claws-mail.pl
560 convert an Outlook contacts list to a Claws Mail
563 open messages in POPFile control center to edit their status
565 process a Claws Mail message and print it using enscript
566 if available or lpr if not
568 convert an addressbook exported from The Bat! into
569 a Claws Mail addressbook
571 integrate a Thunderbird folder tree into Claws Mail
573 Display various attachments as text
575 attempt to view an attachment as plain text
576 thunderbird-filters-convertor.pl
577 convert Thunderbird filtering rules
579 translators' tool that eases the creation of
582 decode UUencoded mails, for use with Actions
584 Decode uuencoded attachments and open them with OpenOffice
586 import an Evolution vCard
589 10. How to contribute
590 ---------------------
592 You are encourged to send patches via the Claws Mail bugzilla at
593 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
594 But please first read the patch guidelines here:
595 http://www.claws-mail.org/devel.php
597 If that's too troublesome, either contact Paul Mangan
598 <paul@claws-mail.org> or consider posting to the
599 Claws Mail-users mailing list.
600 http://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
602 Bugs can be reported with Claws' bugzilla at:
603 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
605 Of course, you can also post to the Claws Mail-users mailing list.
607 Also, we really try to incorporate good contributions, but sometimes we
608 don't have enough time. If the contribution is really big, or requires
609 a long time to stabilise, send a mail to Paul Mangan
610 <paul@claws-mail.org>. We can probably arrange access to the
611 Claws Mail Git repository.
615 11. How to request features
616 ---------------------------
618 Ask around in Claws Mail-users ML. Note that some developers may
619 have already thought about your feature and may, perhaps, be implementing
620 it, or the feature was already discussed and rejected for whatever reason.
621 You might want to go ahead and hack a patch for it. (That would be very
622 cool!) Another possibility is to add a request to our bugzilla, (severity:
624 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
627 12. Installing Claws Mail from Git
628 --------------------------------------
633 To download the latest Git, cd to the directory where you wish to download
634 to and type the following information:
636 git clone http://git.claws-mail.org/readonly/claws.git
638 Later, when you want to update your local repository, you'll just have to
639 go back to the 'claws' directory, and type:
646 To compile and install use the following commands:
648 ./autogen.sh [add configure options as required]
650 make install [as root]
652 You will need a full set of development tools installed to be able to run
653 autogen.sh. See also ac/README.
705 2006-12-04 2.6.1 [first release as Claws Mail]
746 2004-05-31 0.9.11claws
747 2004-03-08 0.9.10claws
748 2004-02-06 0.9.9claws
749 2003-12-19 0.9.8claws
750 2003-11-26 0.9.7claws
751 2003-10-02 0.9.6claws
752 2003-09-10 0.9.5claws
753 2003-08-04 0.9.4claws
754 2003-07-12 0.9.3claws
755 2003-05-24 0.9.0claws
756 2003-03-12 0.8.11claws
757 2003-02-12 0.8.10claws
758 2003-01-24 0.8.9claws
759 2002-12-26 0.8.8claws
760 2002-12-23 0.8.7claws
761 2002-11-25 0.8.6claws
762 2002-10-07 0.8.5claws
763 2002-09-22 0.8.3claws
764 2002-08-28 0.8.2claws
765 2002-07-30 0.8.1claws
766 2002-07-23 0.8.0claws
767 2002-06-15 0.7.8claws
768 2002-05-18 0.7.6claws
769 2002-04-28 0.7.5claws
770 2002-03-11 0.7.4claws
771 2002-02-19 0.7.2claws
772 2002-02-14 0.7.1claws
773 2002-01-14 0.7.0claws
774 2001-12-16 0.6.6claws
775 2001-10-16 0.6.5claws8
776 2001-09-30 0.6.2claws
777 2001-08-14 0.6.1claws
778 2001-07-13 0.5.1claws
779 2001-07-01 0.5.0claws3
780 2001-06-16 0.4.99claws
781 2001-05-29 0.4.99claws3
782 2001-05-11 0.4.67claws1
789 http://www.claws-mail.org/
791 http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/
793 http://sourceforge.net/projects/claws-mail/
795 http://www.claws-mail.org/downloads.php
797 http://www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php
799 http://www.claws-mail.org/themes.php
801 http://www.claws-mail.org/MLs.php
802 Users Mailing List archive
803 http://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/users/index.html
804 Commits Announcement List archive
805 http://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/commits/index.html
806 Bug/Patch/Feature Request Tracker
807 http://www.thewildbeast.co.uk/claws-mail/bugzilla/index.cgi
808 Internationalisation Status
809 http://www.claws-mail.org/i18n.php
811 http://www.claws-mail.org/sponsors.php
813 http://planet.claws-mail.org/
814 Claws Mail for Windows homepage
815 http://www.claws-mail.org/win32/