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Chapter 1. Sylpheed FAQ - General Information

Q: Are there FAQ's in other languages?
Q: What is Sylpheed?
Q: Where can I get Sylpheed?
Q: Who writes Sylpheed?
Q: What does the name Sylpheed mean?
Q: How does Sylpheed store mails?
Q: Why does the auto collection of mail not work?
Q: Does Sylpheed have mail filtering?
Q: Can Sylpheed handle IMAP mail?
Q: Can Sylpheed handle local unix mailboxes?
Q: Can Sylpheed handle IPv6?
Q: Does Sylpheed support encryption like GPG?
Q: How does Sylpheed check for MIME types?
Q: Does Sylpheed allow me to write HTML styled messages?
Q: Does Sylpheed have automatic name completion in the address fields?
Q: Fine, but when I hit the Tab key I either get an error message or nothing happens at all.
Q: Why is Sylpheed so fast?
Q: Where can I get the current patches for Sylpheed?
Q: How can I send in patches, report bugs, talk about Sylpheed with others?
Q: When I send mail, the Content-Type header says the mail is in US-ASCII, even when I specified ISO-8859-1?
Q: Why does it look like word wrap is not working?
Q: How do I copy my mail archive to another machine?
Q: Can I import a mbox into Sylpheed's MH mailfolders?
Q: Can I use procmail to sort my mails with the MH mail handling?
Q: When I upgrade Sylpheed, are there things I should be aware of?
Q: How can I quickly update the views in Sylpheed?
Q: Why can't I use gvim as external editor?
Q: Can I quote just parts of the original message when replying?
Q: Can I reply without quoting at all?
Q: Does Sylpheed provide an anti-spam feature?
Q: Are there any plug-ins extending standard Sylpheed functionality?
Q: Where I can find the latest Sylpheed FAQ and manual?
Q: Where I can obtain source files for this document?
Q: I have found an error and/or outdated information in this document!
Q: Who are the members of the Sylpheed Documentation Project?
Are there FAQ's in other languages?
Yes. Here are links to several translations:
You can always download this FAQ from the Sylpheed Documentation Project website.

Note

Did not find your language in the list? Would you like to contribute with a new translation to the Sylpheed Documentation Project? Then please contact the Project members at their website. Thanks in advance.
What is Sylpheed?
Sylpheed is an email client (and news reader) based on GTK+, running on the X Window System or Microsoft Windows, and aiming for:
  • Quick response
  • Graceful, and sophisticated interface
  • Easy configuration, intuitive operation
  • High reliability
  • Internationalization and multilingualization support
  • Abundant features
As the Sylpheed README file reads: The appearance and interface are similar to some popular e-mail clients for Windows, such as Outlook Express or Becky!. Many commands are accessible with the keyboard like the Emacs-based mailers such as Mew and Wanderlust. So you will be able to migrate to Sylpheed without much discomfort, even if you are accustomed to other mailers.
Where can I get Sylpheed?
You can download it from the download page on Sylpheed website. There are links to download tarball sources, patches to the previous version, and also links to the Sylpheed for Windows binaries, including the installer, the ZIP archive, and the patch to the previous Sylpheed for Windows version.
Depending on the state of the Sylpheed development cycle, you may be offered links to development versions such as beta and RC releases. These might not be suitable for everyday use, however, so you may want to stick with the stable release, anyway.
Also on the download page, you can download Sylph-Searcher (which is a program that enables fast full-text search of messages stored in mailboxes of Sylpheed, or normal MH folders), and LibSylph (which is a library that provides Sylpheed core features independent from the UI of Sylpheed).
Who writes Sylpheed?
Hiroyuki Yamamoto .
What does the name Sylpheed mean?
It means light weight, like air. This comes from the name of the wind spirits, the Sylphs.
How does Sylpheed store mails?
Mails are stored in the MH mailfile format as used by MH and EMH. Maildir, mbox, and eml formats are not (yet) supported, although it is possible to import an mbox file or an eml file into a Sylpheed mailbox.
You can manage your mails just with Sylpheed, or together with another mailer based on the MH format (e.g. Mew). The MH format has less possibility of losing mails on failures since one file corresponds to one mail. You can also utilize fetchmail and/or procmail, and external programs on receiving (like inc or imget).
Why does the auto collection of mail not work?
Auto collection works since version 0.5.1. If you need it or want it, you should upgrade.
Does Sylpheed have mail filtering?
Yes. You can find it in Configuration -> Filter settings...
Please note that filtering is not yet implemented for IMAP accounts.
Can Sylpheed handle IMAP mail?
Yes. As of version 0.4.99 IMAP is supported.
Can Sylpheed handle local unix mailboxes?
Yes.
Can Sylpheed handle IPv6?
Yes, IPv6 is fully supported in Sylpheed.
Does Sylpheed support encryption like GPG?
Yes. GPG is implemented and works fine. For activating it in Sylpheed, see the appropriate question in the Installation section.
How does Sylpheed check for MIME types?
Sylpheed uses the Mutt type of mime checking.
Does Sylpheed allow me to write HTML styled messages?
No. A discussion has gone around over this topic, and the outcome was that HTML mail is not wanted. If you really need to send HTML, you can of course attach a web page to an email.
Does Sylpheed have automatic name completion in the address fields?
Yes. When you search for a name that starts with "don", type "don" (without the quotes) and it will show you the correct name (when only one "don" exists in your address book. Otherwise a drop-down list appears, which allows you to select the name you want. E.g. Donald Duck, Don Johnson. But also email addresses starting with "don" will appear in the list (like "don.giovanni@maffia.org").
Prior to Sylpheed 3.1, users needed to press the Tab key before the search would start. If you still prefer the previous behavior, you can enable it by checking Configuration → Common preferences... → Details → Other → Address book+Address auto-completion:+Start with Tab.
Fine, but when I hit the Tab key I either get an error message or nothing happens at all.
When you want to use name completion, make sure that there are names in your address book. If there are no names, even Sylpheed has a hard time completing something.
If nothing happens at all when typing text in the address fields, make sure that you have the address auto-completion enabled by checking that the following preference is not selected: Configuration → Common preferences... → Details → Other → Address book+Address auto-completion:+Disabled.
Why is Sylpheed so fast?
That's what it is designed for!
Where can I get the current patches for Sylpheed?
In most cases, current patches are being posted by Sylpheed users and contributors to the Sylpheed mailing list . (Also see the Installation section on how to install a patch.)
How can I send in patches, report bugs, talk about Sylpheed with others?
To talk to others, you should join the Sylpheed mailing list at http://www.sraoss.jp/mailman/listinfo/sylpheed . Note that there is a Japanese and an English list, so pick the right one! If you have made a patch that you want the world to know of, please post it either to the mailing list, or contact the Sylpheed author, Hiroyuki Yamamoto .
Please supply the information of Tools → Log window, or the contents of sylpheed.log, which is located under the configuration folder, when reporting bugs.
When I send mail, the Content-Type header says the mail is in US-ASCII, even when I specified ISO-8859-1?
If ISO-8859-1 characters (>= 0x80) are not used in the message body, Sylpheed will automatically set the charset value in the Content-Type header as US-ASCII.
Why does it look like word wrap is not working?
Word wrapping is a bit peculiar perhaps. You can type lines as long as you like. By the time you send or queue a mail with long lines, Sylpheed will first wrap the lines to the line length you set up, and then the mail is queued. This is more convenient than you think. Once a line is wrapped (hard line breaks are inserted in the text) and you add something in a line there, the next line will move to a separate new line, leaving one or two words from the previous line "hanging there" alone. E.g.

           This is a long line that
           is wrapped.

Now you add one word in the first line:

           This is a very long line
           that
           is wrapped

This would cause you a lot of manual reformatting to get a presentable mail again.

Note

As of Sylpheed 0.8.0., active word wrap has been implemented. You can turn it on in Common Preferences → Compose → Editor+Wrap on input.
How do I copy my mail archive to another machine?
You need to copy the sylpheed-2.0 directory with your user profile, and your entire local mail archive.
Under UNIX, the user profile is stored in $HOME/.sylpheed-2.0 by default, and your local mail archive is by default located in $HOME/Mail.
While under Windows 2000/XP, the user profile is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\(user name)\Application Data\Sylpheed by default, and your local mail archive is by default located in C:\Documents and Settings\(user name)\Application Data\Sylpheed\Mailboxes\Mail.
Under Windows Vista/Seven, the directory paths are C:\Users\(user name)\AppData\Roaming\Sylpheed, and C:\Users\(user name)\AppData\Roaming\Sylpheed\Mailboxes\Mail, respectively.
Can I import a mbox into Sylpheed's MH mailfolders?
Yes, just create/select the folder you want your mails in, and select Import mbox file... in the File menu.
Can I use procmail to sort my mails with the MH mail handling?
Yes. Just make sure that you add /. to the end of a rule so procmail knows you are filtering into an MH mail folder. Example: 
0:
* ^Subject:.*sylpheed
sylpheedmail/.
Check man procmail for details.
When I upgrade Sylpheed, are there things I should be aware of?
Yes!
  • Upgrade to 0.4.50: you should reconfigure your newsgroup settings
  • Upgrade to 0.4.63: you should set the URL string colors from the Configuration menu
  • Upgrade to 0.4.65: some menu items have been moved
  • Upgrade to 0.7.3: many key bindings have changed
  • Upgrade to 2.2.3 or former on Windows: all configuration files such as mailboxes or bsfilter files are removed when performing the upgrade and/or uninstallation, so please be careful and backup your data
You should always read the NEWS document (and also NEWS-x.0 if you are upgrading from a very old version) that is included in the release tarballs. The NEWS can also be viewed on the appropriate Sylpheed website page.
How can I quickly update the views in Sylpheed?
Just press Alt+U or select Update summary from the View menu.
Why can't I use gvim as external editor?
If one wishes to use gvim as an external editor it's necessary to start it with the no-fork option -f, i.e. in the configuration dialog box you need to enter gvim -f %s. If not the editor forks and open up a separate file and when one quits the editor the changes are lost and don't show up in the composer window. (Thanks, Ed Collins!)
Can I quote just parts of the original message when replying?
Yes, select the part in the text view and choose Reply.
Can I reply without quoting at all?
You need to disable quoting by editing the reply format under Configuration → Common preferences → Compose tab → Format tab (also works with forward format which you can see below the reply format in the configuration dialog).
Does Sylpheed provide an anti-spam feature?
Yes. It has a bogofilter and a bsfilter support. Just go to Configuration → Common preferences... → Junk mail and check Enable Junk mail control. Then you can select a Learning command preset of your choice, or possibly use custom commands.
You can also use other spam filters thanks to the Actions functionality (available under Configuration → Actions...).

Note

You need to have bogofilter, bsfilter, or other spam filter properly installed on your system prior to the junk mail configuration in Sylpheed, unless you use Sylpheed for Windows, which comes with bsfilter included in the installation program (since version 2.7.0).
Are there any plug-ins extending standard Sylpheed functionality?
As of Sylpheed 3.1, there is an Attachment Tool Plug-in distributed with the Sylpheed source code and available under plugin/attachment_tool/. Its only function is to remove attachments from selected messages and is provided more or less as a technology preview. More plug-ins are planned since Sylpheed 3.0, released in early 2010, and later supports a plug-in interface. In the future, some of the Sylpheed features will be re-implemented as plug-ins, and, moreover, various other plug-ins will be released.
There is a page on the Sylpheed website dedicated to the plug-in interface. Additionally, the PLUGIN.txt file distributed directly with Sylpheed can provide you with some basic information on the topic.

Note

If you are a developer interested in creating plug-ins for Sylpheed, see the plug-in specification on the Sylpheed wiki.
Where I can find the latest Sylpheed FAQ and manual?
Go to http://sylpheeddoc.sourceforge.net and check out the FAQ and manual from the Sylpheed Documentation Project (sylpheeddoc). Both documents are available in multiple languages there and usually contain the latest updates. The direct links are as follows:
Also see the question about available language versions at the top of this section.
Where I can obtain source files for this document?
The source DocBook XML files in which this document is written can be obtained from a public CVS repository that is part of the Sylpheed Documentation Project. The source files with all the necessary build system, XSL stylesheets or snapshots are stored under the "doc" module in the CVS repository and can be checked out through anonymous CVS with the following commands (simply press Enter when prompted for a password):
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@sylpheeddoc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sylpheeddoc login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@sylpheeddoc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sylpheeddoc co -P doc
The source files are also included in .tar.gz and .zip archives made available with each documentation release, these can be downloaded from the appropriate project page. For more information on the used project infrastructure, please see the project website.
I have found an error and/or outdated information in this document!
Please report any errors, misleading and/or outdated information to the Sylpheed Documentation Project. You can see the list of Project members in the following question, so you can also contact them directly.
Who are the members of the Sylpheed Documentation Project?
The current members of the Sylpheed Documentation Project are: 
Francois Barriere      fbarriere at users.sourceforge.net
Petr Kovar             pknbe at users.sourceforge.net
Below is the list of former members of the Sylpheed Documentation Project. Big thank you goes to all of them! 
Martin   Bretschneider furbour at users.sourceforge.net
Olivier  Delhomme      dup at users.sourceforge.net
Doruk    Fisek         dobidik at users.sourceforge.net
Melvin   Hadasht       mhadasht at users.sourceforge.net
Nicolas  Kaiser        nikai at users.sourceforge.net
Paul     Kater         pkater at users.sourceforge.net
Ricardo  Mones Lastra  mones at users.sourceforge.net
Jens     Oberender     jobi at users.sourceforge.net
Marcelo  Ramos         hackpando at users.sourceforge.net
Guido    Rudolphi      malatesta at users.sourceforge.net
Frank    Weng          fweng at users.sourceforge.net