Claws Mail
Claws Mail is a mail client forked from Sylpheed. In Claws Mail FAQ, it is said: Claws Mail has many extra features compared to Sylpheed and is more powerful, yet is just as fast, lightweight and stable.
It is in active development, can be extended by many plugins, and allows importing of mbox-format mailboxes (coming from Thunderbird, for example). Its native mailbox format is wikipedia:MH Message Handling System, although the mbox format can be used with a plugin. Claws Mail cannot write HTML messages (in keeping with the Keep It Simple principle), but can read them using plugins.
For Gentoo Linux it is provided by the mail-client/claws-mail package for all architectures except ia64.
Installation[edit | edit source]
USE flags[edit | edit source]
USE flags for mail-client/claws-mail An email client (and news reader) based on GTK+
appindicator
|
Build in support for notifications using the libindicate or libappindicator plugin |
archive
|
Enable archiving plugin |
bogofilter
|
Build mail-filter/bogofilter plugin |
calendar
|
Add support for calendars (not using mcal!) |
clamav
|
Add support for Clam AntiVirus software (usually with a plugin) |
dbus
|
Enable dbus support for anything that needs it (gpsd, gnomemeeting, etc) |
debug
|
Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces |
dillo
|
Enable dillo html viewer plugin |
doc
|
Add extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc). It is recommended to enable per package instead of globally |
gdata
|
Enable plugin for access to Google data providers |
gnutls
|
Prefer net-libs/gnutls as SSL/TLS provider (ineffective with USE=-ssl) |
gtk2
|
Build support for GTK+-2 instead of GTK+-3 (live ebuild only) |
imap
|
Add support for IMAP (Internet Mail Application Protocol) |
ipv6
|
Add support for IP version 6 |
ldap
|
Add LDAP support (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) |
libcanberra
|
Enable sound notification in connection with USE=notification |
libnotify
|
Enable notification on the desktop in connection with USE=notification |
litehtml
|
Enable dev-libs/gumbo html viewer plugin |
networkmanager
|
Enable net-misc/networkmanager support |
nls
|
Add Native Language Support (using gettextGNU locale utilities) |
nntp
|
Add support for newsgroups (Network News Transfer Protocol) |
notification
|
Notification for new mail in different way, see also USE flags libcanberra, libindicate and libnotify |
pdf
|
Add general support for PDF (Portable Document Format), this replaces the pdflib and cpdflib flags |
perl
|
Add optional support/bindings for the Perl language |
pgp
|
Enable PGP support |
rss
|
Enable support for RSS feeds |
session
|
Add persistent session support |
sieve
|
Build plugin for sieve filter support |
smime
|
Build plugin for S/MIME support |
spam-report
|
Enable plugin for spam reporting to various services |
spamassassin
|
Build mail-filter/spamassassin plugin |
spell
|
Add dictionary support |
startup-notification
|
Enable application startup event feedback mechanism |
svg
|
Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) |
valgrind
|
Add support for memory debugging using valgrind |
xface
|
Add xface support used to allow a small image of xface format to be included in an email via the header 'X-Face' |
Plugins[edit | edit source]
Plugins are compiled with Claws Mail when the appropriate USE flags are set — bogofilter, spamassassin or pdf, for example.
Before version 3.9.1 plugins had to be separately emerged.
Spam Filtering[edit | edit source]
- Simple way: Bogofilter is a powerful Bayesian filter which doesn't need to be configured. It quickly learns from the user's spam and ham classifications in Claws Mail. It is the preferred spam filter for desktop computers. Set the
bogofilterUSE flag to compile the plugin with Claws Mail.
- Hard way: Spamassassin is a huge mail filtering system, using Bayesian filtering and external spam-definition resources. It must be extensively configured and its daemon (spamd) must be running for Claws Mail to use it. It is the preferred spam filter for mail servers. Set the
spamassassinUSE flag to compile the plugin with Claws Mail. Some information can be found in the articles Complete Virtual Mail Server and Mailfiltering Gateway.
Emerge[edit | edit source]
Create a /etc/portage/package.use/claws-mail file to activate the desired USE flags (or add them to the /etc/portage/package.use file). To set bogofilter, pgp and archive, for example:
root #echo 'mail-client/claws-mail bogofilter pgp archive' > /etc/portage/package.use/claws-mailThen emerge Claws Mail:
root #emerge --ask mail-client/claws-mailConfiguration and Usage[edit | edit source]
- Accounts, mail filtering, models, actions, labels, etc. are set in the Configuration menu;
- main configuration is done in Configuration > Preferences…;
- plugins are (de)activated in Configuration > Plugins… and configured in Configuration > Preferences…;
- the archive plugin is run from Tools > Create Archive…;
- the user interface can be modified: lists headers in global or message views, icons, fonts;
- the address book can import and export several formats.
Clawsker[edit | edit source]
mail-client/clawsker can be installed to edit many preferences which are not in the GUI:
root #emerge --ask mail-client/clawskerThen launch it when Claws Mail is not running:
user $clawskerThe Claws Mail preferences file is ~/.claws-mail/clawsrc.
Themes[edit | edit source]
Many icon themes can be installed with x11-themes/claws-mail-themes:
root #emerge --ask x11-themes/claws-mail-themes