Using

The Main Window
The main window is the window that appears when is started. It is divided into three panes:
Folders pane (left pane) 	 This pane contains a list of your message folders (other email programs may call them mailboxes). If there is a number after the folder name this indicates that this folder contains unread messages, except for the outbox which shows the number of total messages. To select a folder, simply click on it. The messages contained in the folder will now appear in the Headers pane. The number of unread messages and the total number of messages in the selected folder is now displayed in the status bar. The folders can be displayed in both a short view, which takes up only a small portion of the left side of the screen, and a long view, which takes up the entire left side of the screen but is able to show more mailboxes. You can toggle between these two views under Appearance/Layout in the Configure ... dialog. Also see the Folders Section for more information about how to use folders.
Headers pane (upper right pane) 	 This pane lists header information (message Status Flags, Sender, Subject, Date, optionally Size) for the messages in the currently selected folder. Clicking on a header will select that message and display it in the Message pane. You can also select a series of messages by clicking on one message, holding down the key, and clicking on another message. The two messages you just clicked on will be selected, along with all the messages in between. By holding down the key you can select any number of messages without those in between. You may sort the messages by clicking on the column that you wish to sort. If you click on the same column more then once, sort order will toggle between ascending/descending. If you click on the Subject column, you can toggle sorting between Subject ascending/descending and Status ascending/descending. Similarly, if you click on the Date column, you can toggle sorting between Date ascending/descending and Date (Order of Arrival) ascending/descending.
Message pane (lower right pane) 	 This pane displays the currently selected message. Attachments appear at the bottom of the message. You can scroll through the message page by page using the Page Up and Page down keys, or line by line using the up arrow and down arrow keys. You can also use key shortcuts to skip through your messages without having to use the mouse.

Keyboard Shortcuts
The following keyboard shortcuts are supported in the main window:
Keyboard Shortcut	Action
Space	Scroll down in the current message or go to the next unread message if you are already at the bottom.
Right Arrow or N	Go to the next message in the current folder.
Left Arrow key or P	Go to the previous message in the current folder.
+	Go to the next unread message in the current folder.
-	Go to the previous unread message in the current folder.
+	Go to the next folder with unread messages.
-	Go to the previous folder with unread messages.
Left Arrow	Walk upwards in the list of folders. Use Space to actually enter the folder.
Right Arrow	Walk downwards in the list of folders. Use Space to actually enter the folder.
Space	Enter the folder that has focus, the folder that you navigated to using Left Arrow or Right Arrow.
Left Arrow and Right Arrow	Select messages in the header pane, starting with the current message.

The Composer Window
The composer window is used to write new messages. It can be invoked from the Message menu or from the New Message icon on the Mail Reader window button bar.

Composing a Message
To write your message, fill in the appropriate fields in the composer window. Use the View menu to select which header fields are displayed. The Identity field offers a Sticky option. If it is checked, the current identity will become the default identity when you open a new composer next time.
There are a variety of shortcuts to help you with writing your messages. The ellipsis buttons next to the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields will call up the address book so that you can select addresses from there.
When you start typing an address in the To:/Cc:/Bcc: fields, a popup will appear that offers matching addresses that have been used recently and matching addresses from your address book. If you don't like the automatic popup you can disable it by clicking with the on the field and choosing a different completion mode.
Whenever you want to add more than one recipient in one of the fields, use a comma to separate each address from the next one. You may need to specify fully qualified addresses ( user@domain.com) even for local users, depending on your system configuration.
When you are finished with your message, click the Send icon (the envelope) to send the message now, or click the Queue icon to put the message in the outbox. If your message isn't finished yet, select Message Save in drafts folder. If you want to send an encrypted or digitally signed message, select the Sign Message resp. Encrypt Message icons in the toolbar.

Adding Attachments
You can attach files to your message by using one of the methods below:
Click the paper clip button and select the file you wish to attach.
Drag a file from the desktop or another directory into the composer window.
Select one of the options in the Attach menu.
Once a file is attached to your message, it appears in the attachments pane at the bottom of the composer window. You can use the on each attachment to View, Save or Remove the attachment.
Use the Properties... item to open the Message Part Properties dialog. The first field contains the attachment's -type. Just like the Name field, it should be automatically filled with an appropriate value. Sometimes the -type value may be wrong. You can then type in any -type or choose from the list of common -types. You can also select an encoding method for your file from the list of encoding options (normally, the default value works fine). Check the Suggest automatic display option if you want to suggest to the recipient the automatic (inline) display of this part in the message preview, instead of the default icon view.
PGP/GnuPG keys may also be attached to your message by using the appropriate options in the Attach menu. PGP key attachments are handled like file attachments.
You can encrypt your messages sent with , but this does not mean that the attachments are encrypted. You have to encrypt your attachments manually, using a shell command or some other tool before you attach them.

Checking the Spelling of your Message
To check the spelling of your message, select Edit Spelling.... uses to check spelling, which is the frontend to the ispell or aspell spelling checker. Note that you may first need to configure the spellchecker using Settings Spellchecker....

Message Folders
Message Folders are used to organize your email messages. By default, all message folders are stored in the directory Mail, which is created in your home directory. When you first start the inbox, outbox, sent-mail, trash and drafts folders are created. These folders each have special functions:
inbox: 	 Where by default puts your new messages when you ask it to check your mail.
outbox: 	 Where messages are put while they are waiting to be delivered.
sent-mail: 	 Contains copies of all messages that you have sent.
trash: 	 Contains all messages that you have deleted.
drafts: 	 Contains messages you started to edit but then saved to this folder instead of sending them.
You may find that the standard folders are fine for your needs. Eventually, though, you will probably need folders to help you organize your messages. To create a new folder, select Folder Create... A window will then prompt you for the name of the folder. If you don't want it to be a top level folder, you may choose the folder under which it will appear. If you ever need to change the settings for a folder, select the folder you wish to modify in the Folders pane and select Folder Properties... .
To move messages from one folder into another, select the message(s) you want to move and press the M key or select Message Move to. A list of folders will appear. Select the folder from the list that you want to move the messages to. Messages can also be moved by dragging them from the Headers pane into the Folders pane.
If you want to clear all of the messages out of a folder choose Folder Empty. All the messages in the selected folder will then be moved to the trash folder. If the selected folder is the trash folder, all of the messages will be permanently deleted.
You can use Folder Remove to remove a folder and all its messages if you choose Remove from the appearing confirmation dialog, but unlike with Folder Empty there's no way to get the contents of the folder back.

Message Filters
After using for a while, you may find that you have trouble sorting out the new messages in your inbox when they arrive. Filters allow you to automatically perform certain actions on incoming messages and to manually perform actions on selected messages in a folder.
Please note that the filters described in this section are applied after the messages have been downloaded from your account. If you want to filter messages on the server, see Download Filters.
Filters consist of a search pattern, whose rules are used as criteria to determine whether this filter should be applied to a given message, and a list of filter actions, which describe what is being done with or to the message if the search pattern matches. Read more about search patterns and filter actions in the following subsections.
Filters are considered one after the other, starting with the first filter in the list. The first one whose pattern matches the given message gets executed. You can request that the remaining filters also be applied, but the default is to stop processing at the first matching filter.
Usually, filters are used on incoming messages, but they can also be applied to sent messages or to an arbitrary message or group of messages. To selectively filter messages, select the messages you want to filter in the message list and type J or select Message Apply Filters. This will apply all filters that have been marked for manual filtering in the filter dialog to those messages.

Fast Filter Creation
There are two methods for creating a filter: The quick method is to use Message Create Filter. This will call the filter dialog and present you with a new filter which has the first rule of the search pattern and the first action (as move to folder) preset. In most cases, all you have to do is select the folder where the message should be moved to. But you can, of course, edit the filter as you like.
The interesting thing about this method is that creating a filter on mailing lists will try really hard to find a criterion that uniquely identifies messages from that list. If it succeeds, the guessed name of the list is presented in the Message Create Filter Filter on Mailing-List... menu entry.
The second method is to manually construct a filter from scratch by calling the filter dialog through Settings Configure Filters.... The filter dialog is described in detail in the following subsection.

The Filter Dialog
This dialog allows you to manage and edit your list of filters.
You reach it either via Message Create Filter or Settings Configure Filters....
The dialog is divided into four main sections:
Available Filters 	This group contains the list of filters and some action buttons to modify the filters, namely to create new filters, to move them up or down the list, or to delete or rename them. If you select a filter from the list, its properties are shown in the right-hand half of the dialog.
Filter Criteria 	In this group you can edit the pattern that messages must match for the filter to be applied to them. You can select here whether all of the defined rules must match or whether it suffices that any one of them matches. See Search Patterns below for a detailed description of each search rule type.
You can click on More to get an additional (initially empty) rule if you want to define more complex patterns and on Fewer to remove the last rule. Clear clears the pattern, it removes all but two rules from screen and resets those two.
Invalid or empty rules are not evaluated.
Filter Actions 	In this group you can edit the list of actions that is applied to all messages that match the defined search pattern. See Filter Actions below for a detailed description of each action type.
You can click on More to get a new, empty action if you want to define more than one action and on Fewer to remove the last action. Clear clears the list, it removes all but one action and resets that one.
Invalid or empty actions are not executed.
Advanced Options 	 In this group you can define a few advanced options for filters that allow you to refine your filtering.
Using the first row of check boxes, you can toggle the applicability of the corresponding filter: The incoming messages check shows whether it may be considered for incoming messages ( on Check Mail). The sent messages check shows the same for sent messages ( after Send) and the manual filtering check controls whether to apply this filter when filtering manually ( via Message Apply filters).
Filters are automatically named unless you explicitely rename them using the Rename... button. The dialog assumes that it should continue auto-naming the filter as long as the filter name starts with <.
If you apply filter changes, via OK or Apply, only valid filters are actually copied to the internal filter manager.
A filter is considered invalid if
the search pattern contains only empty rules or
the action list is empty.
Similarly, empty rules and actions are removed from the pattern and action list respectively, before the filter is saved.

Search Patterns
The most common use of filters is to filter on the sender of messages. This can be done by choosing From. A good bet for a mailing list would be <recipients>. But there are other criteria a filter can search for:
<message> 	 Searches the whole message ( headers, body and attachments, if any).
<body> 	 Searches the body of the message.
<any header> 	 Searches the headers of the message.
<recipients> 	 Searches the To and Cc header fields of the message.
<size> 	 Sets upper or lower bounds on the message size.
<age in days> 	 Sets upper or lower bounds on the message age.
Any other name 	 Searches the header field that is given by that name.

Filter Action
The most common use of filters is to sort incoming messages to certain folders. This can be done by choosing move to folder. Here's a list of all possible actions:
move to folder 	 This will move the message to another folder. You currently cannot use IMAP folders as a target.
set identity to 	 This will set your identity if you reply to this message.
mark as 	 This allows you to mark the message as read or important (flagged), but also as forwarded, replied,
set transport to 	 This will set the method of transport (⪚ SMTP) if you reply to the message.
set Reply-To to 	Will modify the Reply-To field of this message. This can be useful for mailing lists that automatically set a Reply-To which you don't like.
forward to 	Will forward the message to another email address.
redirect to 	Will redirect the message to another email address.
bounce 	Will try to return the message to the sender as undeliverable.
This will only work if the senders email address is valid. That's not the case for most spam.
confirm delivery 	Will try to return a message to the sender that indicates successful delivery of his or her message.
This action allows you to select who will get delivery receipts from you. Though you can globally enable the sending of delivery confirmations in the Configure ... dialog (Security page) we recommended to not send them to everyone, since this makes tracking of such things as spam very easy for the sender.
execute command 	 This will execute a program, but will not modify the message. Specify the full path to the program you want to execute. will block until the program returns. You can feed the program with the parts of the mail: %0, %1, will stand for files representing the message parts. For common messages %0 is the text, %1 the first attachment and so on. Additionally, the whole message is fed into the program's stdin.
This currently only works if the message has at least one attachment. No, not even %0 will work in the general case!
You can enter arbitrarily complex shell commands here, since uses a subshell to execute the command line. Therefore, even this command will work (within its limits): uudecode -o $(mktemp kmail-uudecoded.XXXXXX) && echo $'\a'
pipe through 	 This will feed the message to a program. If that program returns output, the entire message (including the headers) will be replaced with this output. If the program doesn't return output, the message won't change. Specify the full path to the program.
Be cautious with this action, as it will easily mess up your messages if the filter program does return garbage or extra lines.
remove header 	 Will remove all header fields with the given name from the message. This is useful mainly for removing bogus Reply-To: headers.
add header 	 If no such field is already present, will add a new header field with the given name and value to the message. If there is already a header field with that name, it is overwritten with the new (the given) value. If there are already multiple headers with the given name (⪚ Received: headers), an arbitrary one of them is overwritten and the others are left unchanged. This is a known limitation. You may want to combine this filter with the remove header filter above to make sure that there are no other headers with that name in the message.
rewrite header 	 Will scan the given header field, modify its contents and write it back. The search string is always interpreted as a case-sensitive regular expression. The replacement string is inserted literally except for occurrences of \n, $n and ${nn}, where n is a positive (single-digit, except for the third form) number or 0. These constructs are interpreted as backreferences to substrings captured with parentheses in the search string.
Analogous restrictions as in the add header action apply here, too.

Filter Examples
If I am subscribed to the (general) List, I could create a folder for the list (I'll call it KDE-General) and use a filter to automatically transfer new messages from my inbox to my KDE-General folder if they are from the List. Here is how to create this filter:

Filtering a mailing list
Try if Message Create filter Filter on Mailing-List... can identify the mailing list (the name of the list should then appear in the menu item). In this case, this works and I am presented a filter that has X-Mailing-List equals <kde@lists.netcentral.net> preset. You select the desired destination folder from the folder pull-down menu in the Filter Action group and that's it!
If that does not work, think of a unique way of identifying the messages you want to filter. The (almost) unique property of my List messages is that they always contain kde@lists.netcentral.net in the To: or Cc: field. It's only almost unique, because this fails for cross-posted messages.
Select Settings Configure Filters....
Press the New button to create an empty filter. It will appear as <unnamed>.
In the Filter Criteria area, select <recipients> from the first pull-down menu, contains from the second pull-down menu, and type kde@lists.netcentral.net in the text field.
Skip down to the actions section. Select move to folder from the first pull-down menu. A new pull-down menu containing a list of folders will appear. Select the folder that you want the filtered messages to be transferred to if they match the criteria you selected. For this example, you would select KDE-General from the pull-down menu.
You may find that you need to use more powerful criteria to properly filter your messages. For example, you may only want to filter the List messages that are written by your friend Fred Johnson <fj@anywhere.com>. This is where the rest of the matching criteria section comes into play:

Extending the filter
Open up the Configure Filters... window and select the filter you just created.
Since you want to filter all messages that have kde@lists.netcentral.net in the To: or Cc: field and that are from Fred, check the Match all of the following radio button.
Now, go to the second search rule and select the following from the pull-down menus: From, contains. Now, type fj@anywhere.com in the text field.
You now have a filter that transfers all List messages that are from fj@anywhere.com.

Download Filters
Download Filters can be used to filter mails from a POP server, before they are completely downloaded. You can use it to prevent from downloading huge mails and save time this way.
In the configuration dialog of the POP account you can enable download filtering by checking the Filter mail on server box. Once you did that, you can specify a size which is used as a threshold. Messages exceeding this size will be checked against the filter rules you defined. If no filter rule matches, they will be shown in a confirmation dialog and you can decide what to do with them. The default size for filtering is 50000 Bytes. This is a good value as the overhead is kept to a minimum. Every message that is looked at by the filter causes additional traffic because the header of the mail is downloaded twice. The default action is Download mail to prevent the loss of messages.
Be careful with the Delete mail from server option since once a mail is deleted on the server there is no way to get it back.
With a really good set of filter rules, it is possible that all messages that exceeds the threshold size are automatically tagged ( downloaded, kept on the server or deleted) and you would never be bugged by the confirmation dialog. Be careful though, since once a message is matched by a filter rule, you have no guarantee that you can change the action before it is executed. Only if there is a message left that was not matched by a filter rule the confirmation dialog will show up.

The Configure Pop Filter Dialog
Adding filter rules work similar as for message filters. On the left hand side you can manage the existing filters. Use the New button to add a filter. On the right hand side you can configure under which conditions the current filter should match. Using Filter Action you specify what will happen to a message that is matched by this rule. The available options are:
Download mail 	 Will download the messages matched by the filter, just as any other message that does not exceed the threshold size.
Download mail later 	 Will tag the messages for later download. This means the messages matched will stay on the POP server until you choose to download them by changing the action manually.
Delete mail from server 	 Will delete the message from the server and does not download it. Once you deleted a message from the server, there is no way you can undo this. Be careful, as rules could match messages you actually want, too.
The option Always show matched 'Download Later' messages in confirmation dialog will cause the confirmation dialog to show up during mailbox check if at least one message was tagged for Download Later - even if all messages exceeding the threshold size were matched by a rule. This option is useful in the case you have messages matched by a rule and tagged for Download Later, but you don't get any message exceeding the size limit for a very long time. Without this option, the confirmation dialog would never show up and you would never have a chance to get the queued message by changing the action manually.

The Confirmation Dialog
This dialog shows up whenever you have POP filtering switched on and messages were found on the server that exceed the threshold size you defined for the POP account. Now you have the chance to decide what you want to do with that message. The options are download (green), download later (yellow with eggwatch) and delete from server (red x). Be cautious with the delete option, since once you deleted a mail from the server, there is no way to undelete it again.
In the Filtered Messages section you can check the box if you got messages that were automatically tagged for a certain action (download, download later, delete) by a filter rule. The checkbox is only enabled if you got some messages that were matched by a filter rule. Once you check it, a list similar to the one for the not automatically tagged messages will show up and you can change the action for every single message.
Please note that if there is a message exceeding the size limit, but all messages are matched by a filter rule the dialog will not show up. One exception occurs if you have checked Always show matched 'Download Later' messages in the Global Options section of the POP filter configuration dialog. Then the dialog will also show up if you only have matched messages, but at least one got tagged for download later.

Using multiple Accounts
Multiple accounts are used to check for messages from more than one email address and/or mail server. Select Settings Configure ... and click on the Network page to add or change your account settings. See the Getting started section for more information on the settings in the Network page.
To check for messages from a particular account, use the File Check Mail in... submenu to select the account to check for mail. You can also press the mouse button on the Check Mail icon for some time to get a list of accounts.

Signing and Encrypting Messages with PGP or GnuPG
This is a short introduction on how to setup 's PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) support. It will give some hints on the use of PGP too. It's written for people who are beginners in this area. If you are familiar with the use of PGP, you can skip most of the steps. This documentation (and the user interface) generally talks only about PGP, but it applies to both PGP and GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard), although some GnuPG command line parameters may be different.
Please also check out the item about PGP.
You can encrypt your messages sent with , but this does not mean that the attachments are encrypted. You have to encrypt your attachments manually, using a shell command or some other tool before you attach them.
has to rely on PGP's output. This output is often different between different versions of PGP, so it's important that you test if encryption really works with your setup before you start using it seriously. might not warn you if something fails. You better enable Show ciphered/signed text after composing.
To setup and use PGP support in it is necessary to have PGP installed and set up properly. Of course we cannot give you a full introduction of PGP here. We will only mention the steps you have to do to get PGP going. For details you should have a look at the excellent PGP documentation or The GNU Privacy Handbook.
It is certainly a good idea to study this documentation as well as an introduction into public key cryptography (⪚ out of the PGP 6.5.x package). There you can learn a lot about the basic concepts, which will help you to understand what is going on. As well, many security related issues you should know about are discussed there.
Now let's start.

Preconditions
expects that your PGP binary is called pgp. In case of GnuPG, it expects the binary to be called gpg. If that's not the case for you, just make a symlink.
If you haven't done so, you have to generate a key pair (secret and public key) for your identity. You must do this at the command line: use pgp -kg resp. gpg --gen-key. has no internal support for pgp's key generation at this time. The identity (normally your name followed by your email address within brackets, such as John Doe <john@example.com>) and your passphrase are important for the co-operation between and pgp.

PGP Related Settings in
Enter your PGP user identity in the corresponding field of the Identity settings. Then select the OpenPGP tab on the Security settings page. There you'll find the following options:
Encryption tool 	 Here you can choose if you want to use PGP, GnuPG or no encryption software at all. Of course the program you select has to be installed on your system. It is also important to select the correct version.
Keep passphrase in memory 	 When this option is off, will ask for your passphrase each time you sign a message (before sending) or select an encrypted message. If you turn this option on, will remember your passphrase from after your first successful input until you finish your session. The passphrase is stored in memory and not written to the hard disk.
Always encrypt to self 	 If this option is off and you want to send an encrypted message to somebody, then you can't read this message any longer after you have composed and encrypted it. Turn this option on to keep sent encrypted messages readable for you too.
Show ciphered/signed text after composing 	 This will show you the result of encrypting and signing before the message gets sent. This way you can still cancel sending if encrypting failed. It is strongly recommended to use this option.
Always show the encryption keys for approval 	 This will always open a dialog that lets you choose the key used for each recipient when you are sending an encrypted message. If this option is off, will show this dialog only when it cannot find a key for a recipient.
In the Composer section you can also check the Automatically sign messages using OpenPGP option. This means that all your messages will be signed before being sent. (So you don't have to set the signing option for each message manually.)
Now you are able to sign outgoing messages. To let people send you encrypted messages and to let them verify your signature you must send them your public key or upload your public key to a public PGP key server so that they can fetch your key from there. To send encrypted messages to other people or to verify their signed messages you will need their public keys. You can store your public key(s) on a public PGP key server such as http://www.cam.ac.uk.pgp.net/pgpnet/.

Sign your Messages
You compose your message as usual in the composer window of . Before you send the message, check the Sign Message icon the toolbar of the composer window. Then, you can send the message. The identity you are using the write the current message needs to be connected to an OpenPGP Key in the Identity section of the Configure dialog. To sign the message, needs to know your PGP passphrase. If you didn't select Keep passphrase in memory in the Security section, will ask you for it. On the other hand, if you have already given the phrase to , it will sign the message without any further prompt.

Encrypt your Messages
To send an encrypted message to somebody of whom you have a public key, you simply create the message in the composer window. Before you send the message, check the Encrypt Message button in the toolbar of the composer window. Note that you don't have to check the button if Automatically encrypt messages whenever possible is selected in 's configuration. Then send the message.
If can't find a matching key for a recipient or if it finds more than one key for a recipient, it will display a list containing all available trusted keys in the Encryption Key Selection dialog. Using the Remember choice checkbox you can save your selection for future messages.
If you are using a key for the first time or if Always show the encryption keys for approval is selected in the Security section of 's configuration dialog, the Encryption Key Approval dialog will appear. Here you can select a different key for the recipients and you can also set the Encryption Preference for each recipient. The default option, Encrypt whenever encryption is possible, will automatically encrypt your message if there's a trusted key for each recipient.
As mentioned above, you won't be able to read your own encrypted sent messages if you don't check Always encrypt to self in the setting's Security page. However, note that your own key is not listed in the Encryption Key Approval dialog even if that option is set.

Send your Public Key
Prepare a message to the person you want to send your public key to. Then choose in the composer window's menu Attach Attach My Public Key. This will attach the public key you defined for the current identity to the message. Now you can send the message.
Remember that it's not safe at all if you sign the message to make sure that the receiver will get the correct key. There can be a man-in-the-middle attack, as somebody can change the key and sign the message with that other key. That's why the recipient should verify the attached key by checking the key's fingerprint against the one he got in a secure way from you. Have a look at the PGP documentation for further details.

You got an encrypted Message
All you have to do is to select the message in . You will be prompted for your passphrase. Then will try to decrypt the message and show you the plain text if the message had been encrypted with your public key. (If not, then you won't be able to read it.) stores the messages encrypted, so nobody can read these messages without knowing your passphrase.

Receiving a Public Key
You can receive a public key as an attachment or via http, ftp or a floppy. Before you can use this key to encrypt a message to the owner of the key, you should verify the key (check its fingerprint or look for trusted signatures). Then you can add this key to your public keyring by typing pgp -ka filename at the command line if you are using PGP or by typing gpg --import filename at the command line if you are using GnuPG. If the key is not certified with a trusted signature you can't use it to encrypt messages unless you have signed the key with your key (use pgp -ks identity of the key resp. gpg --sign-key identity of the key).