1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<section id="ch_account">
<title>Account customisation</title>
<section id="account_basic">
<title>Basic preferences</title>
<para>
The first tab of the account preferences, <quote>Basic</quote>,
contains, as its name indicates, basic account data. In this tab you can
specify your name, email address, organization and basic connection
information. The name of the account is just the name Claws Mail
will use when referring to this account, for example, in the account
switcher at the lower right-hand corner of the main window. The server
information lets you specify the receiving protocol to use (which is
not modifiable for existing accounts), the server(s) used to receive or
send your emails (usually <literal>pop.isp.com</literal> and <literal
>smtp.isp.com</literal>) and your login on the receiving server.
</para>
<para>
In the <quote>Receive</quote> tab you are able to change the default
behaviour of Claws Mail. For example, leaving messages on the server
for a while, preventing downloading of mails that are too large, or
specifying whether you want the filtering rules to apply to this
account's mails. The <quote>Receive size limit</quote> is used to limit
the time spent downloading large emails. Whenever you receive a mail
larger than this limit, it will be partially downloaded and you will
later have the choice to either download it entirely or delete it from
the server. This choice will be presented to you while viewing the
email.
</para>
<para>
The <quote>Send</quote> tab contains preferences for special headers
that you might want to add to your outgoing emails, like X-Face or Face
headers, and authentication information for sending emails. Most of the
time, your ISP allows its subscribers to send email via the SMTP server
without authenticating, but in some setups, you have to identify
yourself before sending. There are different possibilities for doing
that. The best one, when available, is SMTP AUTH. When not available,
you'll usually use POP-before-SMTP, which connects to the POP server,
(which is authenticated), disconnects, and sends the mail.
</para>
<para>
The <quote>Compose</quote> tab holds options for changing the behaviour
of the Composition window when used with the account. You can specify a
signature to insert automatically, and set default Cc, Bcc or Reply-To
addresses.
</para>
<para>
In the <quote>Privacy</quote> tab you can choose the default level of
paranoia for your account. You might want all outgoing emails to be
digitally signed and/or encrypted. Signing all outgoing emails, not only
important ones, will for example allow you to protect yourself from
faked mails sent on your behalf to coworkers. This can help solve
embarrassing situations.
</para>
<para>
The <quote>SSL</quote> tab is also security related, although this time
its settings apply to the transport of your emails and not their
content. Basically, using SSL encrypts the connection between you and
the server, which prevents people from snooping on your connection and
being able to read your mails and your password. SSL should be used if
it is available.
</para>
<para>
Finally, the <quote>Advanced</quote> tab allows you to specify ports and
domains if the defaults are not used. Normally you can leave these
empty. You can also specify folders for sent, queued, draft, and deleted
messages here.
</para>
</section>
<section id="account_types">
<title>Account types</title>
<para>
We saw earlier that once an account is created, you can't change its
type (protocol) anymore. This is because preferences for these different
types are not quite the same, most of the POP3 related options are
irrelevant for IMAP, for example.
</para>
<section id="pop3">
<title>POP3</title>
<para>
POP3 is one of the two most used protocols and is available at almost
every ISP on Earth. Its advantage is that it allows you to download
email to your computer, which means that accessing your mail will be
really fast once you have it on your hard disk. The disadvantage of POP3
is that it is more difficult to keep your mail synchronised on multiple
computers, (you'll have to keep the mail on the server for a few days),
and you won't be able to easily keep track of which mails you have read,
or which mails you have replied to, etc., when using another computer.
</para>
<para>
Mail received from a POP3 account will be stored in an MH mailbox in the
folder tree.
</para>
</section>
<section id="imap">
<title>IMAP</title>
<para>
IMAP is the second most used protocol and its goal is to address the
shortcomings of POP3. When using IMAP your folder list and your emails
are all kept on a central server. This slows down navigation a little as
each mail is downloaded on demand, but when you use another computer, or
email client, your emails will be in the same state that you left them,
including their status (read, unread, replied, etc.).
</para>
<para>
When you create an IMAP account an IMAP mailbox is created for it in the
folder tree.
</para>
</section>
<section id="news">
<title>News</title>
<para>
News (NNTP) is the protocol for sending and receiving USENET articles.
Messages are held on a central server and downloaded on demand. They
cannot be deleted by the user.
</para>
<para>
When you create a News account a News mailbox is created for it in the
folder tree.
</para>
</section>
<section id="local">
<title>Local</title>
<para>
The <quote>Local mbox file</quote> type of account can be used if you
run an SMTP server on your computer and/or want to receive your logs
easily.
</para>
<para>
Mail received from a Local account is stored in an MH mailbox in the
folder tree.
</para>
</section>
<section id="smtp_only">
<title>SMTP only</title>
<para>
The account type <quote>None, (SMTP only)</quote> is a special type of
account that won't retrieve any mail, but will allow you to create
different identities that can be used to send out emails with various
aliases, for example.
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="account_multiple">
<title>Multiple accounts</title>
<para>
You can easily create multiple accounts in Claws Mail. For POP
accounts, you can choose to store all email from your different accounts
in the same folder(s), using the Receive tab preference. IMAP and News
accounts each get their own mailbox in the folder tree.
</para>
<para>
You can choose which accounts get checked for new mail when using the
<quote>Get All</quote> command (or "Get Mail" in the toolbar) by
checking the relevant box in the Receive tab of their preferences or
in the <quote>G</quote> column of your accounts list.
</para>
</section>
<section id="account_morefilt">
<title>More filtering</title>
<para>
By default filtering rules are global, but they can also be assigned to
a specific account. When fetching mail, any rules that are assigned to
a specific account will only be applied to mails that are retrieved from
that account.
</para>
<para>
Mail from any account can be filtered into another account's folders,
for example, a mail received by POP3 could be filtered into an IMAP
account's folder, and vice-versa. This is either a useful feature or an
annoying one, depending on what you want to achieve. If you'd rather
avoid that, but still want to automatically sort your incoming mail, the
best thing to do is to disable Filtering on certain accounts, and use
Processing rules in the Inbox folders that you specified, as Processing
rules are automatically applied when entering a folder and can be
manually applied from a folder's context menu.
</para>
</section>
</section>
|
