1.1. |
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. NoteDid 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. |
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1.2. |
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:
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. |
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1.3. |
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). |
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1.4. |
Who writes Sylpheed? |
Hiroyuki Yamamoto |
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1.5. |
What does the name Sylpheed mean? |
It means light weight, like air. This comes from the name of the wind spirits, the Sylphs. |
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1.6. |
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). |
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1.7. |
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. |
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1.8. |
Does Sylpheed have mail filtering? |
Yes. You can find it in ->Please note that filtering is not yet implemented for IMAP accounts. |
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1.9. |
Can Sylpheed handle IMAP mail? |
Yes. As of version 0.4.99 IMAP is supported. |
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1.10. |
Can Sylpheed handle local unix mailboxes? |
Yes. |
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1.11. |
Can Sylpheed handle IPv6? |
Yes, IPv6 is fully supported in Sylpheed. |
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1.12. |
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. |
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1.13. |
How does Sylpheed check for MIME types? |
Sylpheed uses the Mutt type of mime checking. |
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1.14. |
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. |
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1.15. |
Does Sylpheed have name completion in the address fields? |
Yes. When you search for a name that starts with " |
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1.16. |
Fine, but when I hit the Tab key I get an error message. |
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. |
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1.17. |
Why is Sylpheed so fast? |
That's what it is designed for! |
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1.18. |
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 |
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1.19. |
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
Please supply the information of |
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1.20. |
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. |
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1.21. |
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 Now you add one word in the first line: This is a very long line This would cause you a lot of manual reformatting to get a presentable mail again. NoteAs of Sylpheed 0.8.0., active word wrap has been implemented. You can turn it on in Wrap on input. -> -> + |
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1.22. |
How do I copy my mail archive to another machine? |
You need to copy the Under UNIX, the user profile is stored in While under Windows 2000/XP, the user profile is stored in Under Windows Vista, the directory paths are |
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1.23. |
Can I import a mbox into Sylpheed's MH mailfolders? |
Yes, just create/select the folder you want your mails in, and select in the menu. |
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1.24. |
Can I use procmail to sort my mails with the MH mail handling? |
Yes. Just make sure that you add 0: * ^Subject:.*sylpheed sylpheedmail/. Check man procmail for details. |
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1.25. |
When I upgrade Sylpheed, are there things I should be aware of? |
Yes!
You should always read the |
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1.26. |
How can I quickly update the views in Sylpheed? |
Just press Alt-U or select from the menu. |
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1.27. |
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 |
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1.28. |
Can I quote just parts of the original message when replying? |
Yes, select the part in the text view and choose Reply. |
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1.29. |
Can I reply without quoting at all? |
You need to disable quoting by editing the reply format under -> -> -> (also works with forward format which you can see below the reply format in the configuration dialog). |
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1.30. |
Does Sylpheed provide an anti-spam feature? |
Yes. It has a bogofilter and a bsfilter support. Just go to -> -> 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 -> ).NoteYou 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). |
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1.31. |
Where can I 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. |
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1.32. |
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. |
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1.33. |
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 |