211 lines
11 KiB
XML
211 lines
11 KiB
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<section id="ch_handling">
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<title>Basic mail handling</title>
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<section id="handling_folders">
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<title>Mail folders</title>
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<para>
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If you receive a lot of emails, you will probably soon find that your
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Inbox folder is growing to the point where you have a hard time finding
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an email again, even if you received it just a few days ago. This is why
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Claws Mail, like most good mail clients, provides you with multiple
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possibilities in organising your mails.
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</para>
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<para>
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You can create as many folders and subfolders as you need. For example,
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one folder for your family, one folder for friends, folders for
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mailing-lists, archive folders for old mails that you still want to have
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available, etc. To create a new folder, simply right-click on its parent
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folder and choose <quote>New folder...</quote> from the drop-down menu.
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If you want to create a folder <quote>Friends</quote> inside your Inbox
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folder, for example, just right-click on the Inbox folder, choose
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<quote>New folder...</quote>, and type in <quote>Friends</quote> in the
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dialogue that appears. Click the OK button, and the new folder is
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created.
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</para>
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</section>
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<section id="handling_organisation">
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<title>Folder organisation</title>
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<para>
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Now that you have created folders, you can manipulate them and their
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contents using menu items or drag 'n' drop. Moving one folder into
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another, for example, can be done by right-clicking on the folder you
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want to move, choosing the <quote>Move folder...</quote> menu item, and
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selecting the destination folder. This will move the folder, with the
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mail it contains, to a subfolder of the chosen folder. Alternatively,
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you can drag a folder to another one by clicking on it, keeping the
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mouse pressed, moving the mouse cursor over the destination folder and
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releasing the button.
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</para>
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<para>
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If you want to remove a folder and the mail it contains, simply
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right-click on the folder and choose <quote>Delete folder...</quote>. As
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this is potentially harmful, (the mails in the folder will be deleted
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and not recoverable), you will be asked for confirmation.
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</para>
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<para>
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In the same manner that you move a folder to another one, you can move
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emails from one folder to another. The same method applies for this:
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either drag 'n' drop emails to a folder, or choose
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<quote>Move...</quote> after right-clicking on the mail. You can select
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multiple emails by using the Control or Shift key while clicking on
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them. You can also copy emails to another folder by pressing the Control
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key when drag'n'dropping, or by choosing <quote>Copy...</quote> from the
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email's contextual menu.
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</para>
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</section>
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<section id="imap_subscriptions">
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<title>IMAP subscriptions</title>
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<para>
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The IMAP protocol allows one to store a list of subscribed folders. Most
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mail user agents hide the unsubscribed folders away from the GUI, and have
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a little window allowing to subscribe to these unsubscribed folders. In
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Claws Mail, subscriptions are respected by default, and only subscribed
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folders will be displayed. If you want to see all your folders, you can just
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uncheck <quote>Show subscribed folders only</quote> in the IMAP mailbox'
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contextual menu or the account preferences. You'll be able to subscribe and
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unsubscribe folders from this contextual menu too. If the unsubscribed
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folders are hidden from the list, you will have two ways to subscribe to
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a folder: either show all folders, subscribe the ones you want, and hide
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unsubscribed folders again; or, if you know the folder's name, use
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<quote>Create new folder</quote> in its parent's contextual menu.
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</para>
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</section>
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<section id="handling_filters">
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<title>Filtering</title>
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<para>
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Once you have a nice folder hierarchy in place, you'll probably want
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Claws Mail to sort your incoming emails automatically, in order to
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avoid having to move messages manually each time they arrive. For this
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you can use the Filtering feature.
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</para>
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<para>
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You will find the filtering preferences via the
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<quote>Configuration</quote> menu, <quote>Filtering</quote> item. From
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this dialogue you will be able to define new rules, modify or delete
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existing rules, re-order the rules, and enable/disable them. Filtering
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rules are defined by five things: the enabled status, a name, an account
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name, a condition, and an action. All disabled rules are simply ignored.
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The <quote>Name</quote> entry is optional, it's there to help you
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identify your rules. An account name can be chosen, which will restrict
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the rule to mail retrieved from the named account only, skipping it for
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mail retrieved from all other accounts. The default value is
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<quote>All</quote>, which means that the rule is global and will
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be applied to all mail, regardless of the account from which it was
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retrieved, (see paragraph below). The condition format is an expression
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defining what Claws Mail should look for when filtering mail, for
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example: <quote>to matchcase claws-mail-users</quote> is for messages
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sent to any address containing <quote>claws-mail-users</quote>. You can
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easily define conditions by clicking the <quote>Define...</quote> button
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at the right of the field. The last part of a filtering rule is the
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action, which instructs Claws Mail what to do with mail matching
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the condition we just defined. For example, <quote>mark_as_read</quote>
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marks the mail as read as soon as it arrives in your inbox, or
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<quote>move #mh/Mailbox/inbox/Friends</quote> moves the mail to your
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<quote>Friends</quote> subfolder. Here, too, a <quote>Define...</quote>
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button is available to help you define the action to take.
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</para>
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<para>
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Filtering rules can be assigned to a single, specific account. To do
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this select an account from the <quote>Account</quote> combo below the
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<quote>Name</quote> entry. When you set a specific account the filtering
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rule will only be applied to messages retrieved from the named account.
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The default value is <quote>All</quote>, which means that the rule will
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be applied globally, to messages retrieved from any account. When filtering
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messages manually, if there are any per-account filtering rules defined,
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you will be asked what you wish to do with those rules. Possible choices
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are to skip the rules, or apply these rules regardless of the account to
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which they belong, or use the rules for the currently selected account.
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Caution: if you unset the <quote>Show this message next time</quote>
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checkbox and click <quote>Filter</quote>, on subsequent manual filtering
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this choice will be applied without any confirmation. Account specific
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rules are only available for filtering, (at incorporation or manually),
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the feature is not available for folder Processing or Pre/Post-Processing.
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</para>
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<para>
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Once you have defined the rule, you can add it to the list of rules with
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the <quote>Add</quote> button. Don't forget that the order of the rules
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is important: if Claws Mail finds a rule suitable for an email that
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either moves or deletes the email, it will stop looking for further
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rules for that email. This is why, at the right of the rules list, you
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will find four buttons allowing the re-ordering of rules. The rules can
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also be reordered by drag 'n' drop.
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</para>
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<para>
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There is also a quick method of creating filtering rules based on the
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selected message. After selecting a mail of the type you want to filter,
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choose <quote>Create filter rule...</quote> from the
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<quote>Tools</quote> menu, and choose a type from the submenu:
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<quote>Automatically</quote> mainly helps for mailing-lists posts,
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<quote>by From</quote> creates a filter based on the sender of the
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email, <quote>by To</quote> creates a filter based on the recipient, and
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<quote>by Subject</quote> creates a filter based on the subject. Each
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one of these types of filtering has its advantages, it's up to you to
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find out what would be the more practical. Usually,
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<quote>by From</quote> is nice to sort out your regular contacts' mails,
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whereas <quote>by To</quote> is more useful to sort mails sent to your
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different accounts.
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</para>
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</section>
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<section id="handling_searching">
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<title>Searching</title>
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<para>
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There are several methods for searching your emails.
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</para>
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<para>
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One of them is relatively standard, and can be found in the
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<quote>Edit</quote> menu, it's the <quote>Search folder...</quote> item.
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This will open a window where you can specify one or more fields to
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search in: From, To, Subject, and Body. After having specified your
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criteria, click on the <quote>Back</quote> or <quote>Forward</quote>
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buttons to navigate through the matching emails, or use
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<quote>Find all</quote> to select all the matching emails at once. Be
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aware that searching for text in the body of emails is much slower than
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searching in its headers, because the body of emails isn't cached by
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Claws Mail. <quote>Extended Search</quote> mode can be turned on by
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clicking the relevant checkbox, thus allowing you to use match expressions
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like those used in <quote>Filtering</quote> rules.
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</para>
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<para>
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If you're looking at a large email and want to find a particular part
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of it, you can use the <quote>Find in current message...</quote> item of
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the <quote>Edit</quote> menu. This works like search in a text document.
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</para>
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<para>
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The final way of searching for emails is using <quote>Quick Search</quote>,
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which you can display or hide by clicking the little magnifying glass icon
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under the Message List. It is also accessible from the <quote>Quick Search</quote>
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item of the <quote>Edit</quote> menu. <quote>Quick Search</quote> is more
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powerful than the normal search as it can search in standard headers (From,
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To, Subject) or in <quote>Extended</quote> mode using just about any
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criteria you can think of. When in <quote>Extended</quote> mode, the
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<quote>Information</quote> button is visible, enabling you to see the
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search syntax. An <quote>Edit</quote> button is also available which
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allows you to quickly create a rule. You can also configure
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<quote>Quick Search</quote> to search recursively through subfolders,
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whether it should reset itself when you change folders, and whether to
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use Type-ahead search (this is a search which results update dynamically
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if you pause in the typing).
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</para>
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<para>
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When you hit Enter after having specified the search string, the Message
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List will shrink to present you with only the matching messages. If you
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set the search to be recursive, any subfolder of the current one that
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has matching emails will change its icon to a magnifying glass icon.
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This way, you can search in your whole mailbox at once. If the search is
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in Sticky mode, the filter will stay applied when you go to another
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folder. This can be disturbing at first, as you can forget about it, but
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is useful in some cases, for example if you want to search in the body
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of emails and are not sure of which folder contains the searched email:
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a recursive search on the body of emails in a whole mailbox can be
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really slow.
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</para>
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</section>
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</section>
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