Claws Mail
Version: 3.12 Web: www.claws-mail.org
ClawsMail is a well-established email client, which was originally forked from Sylpheed, and first created back in 2001. Claws Mail was designed as a lightweight, yet feature-rich mail application in a time before Mozilla Thunderbird was developed. For years, Claws Mail has been packed with lots of goodies: such as full GnuPG encryption support; an anti-spam module; PDF and HTML rendering; and a bunch of connection options, including NNTP and Usenet as well as conventional POP and IMAP. Claws Mail can also send messages using a predefined schedule, use SSL/ TLS for secure connection and back up the local storage.
The 3.12 version of Claw Mail is a result of eight months of development and now has: a new plugin for managing sieve filters on a server using the ManageSieve protocol; SCRAMSHA-1 authentication for IMAP; an enhanced Bogofilter plugin for a better method of fighting spam and minor fixes to the mail composition window.
To extend the ClawsMail functionality, there are now a number plugins that are included with the outof-the-box package (and described at www.claws-mail.org/plugins.php). By default, plugins are installed systemwide but not enabled in the application.
Claws Mail stores plugins in the $PREFIX/lib/claws-mail/plugins directory and allows loading and unloading them from the Options > Modules menu. Claws is also integrated with another of this issue’s HotPicks, the Dillo web browser, which it uses for previewing HTML emails.
Apart from numerous plugins, there’s a vast set of so-called tools that are essentially just helpful scripts that have been created so users can tailor their experience in the mail client. The Tools section that’s on the ClawsMail website contains dozens of different action scripts, converters, updaters and integration tools, such as KDE service menu or LibreOffice connector.
ClawsMail is included in almost any Linux distro these days or available in a standard repository, so you shouldn’t have any problems installing it on your system, if you don’t use it already.
“Claws Mail is a lightweight, yet feature-rich mail application.”