claws-mail/manual/en/account.xml

<?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>