Sylpheed

Sylpheed is an open source and feature-rich email client that provides users with an easy-to-use and intuitive GUI (Graphical User Interface). It is compatible with Linux and Windows operating systems.

Even if it’s not a popular email application, Sylpheed has been in development for over 14 years and designed to be used by beginners and power users alike. It’s geared towards keyboard-oriented operation.

Features at a glance

Key features include the ability to filter and search email messages in a single or multiple accounts, control junk mail settings, support for external commands, as well as support for foreign languages, including Japanese.

The default functionality of the application can be easily extended through plugins. The Plugin Manager dialog can be accessed from the Configuration menu and allows users to view detailed information about the currently installed plugins.

Security is also a strong point of this applications, as it supports the standard GnuPG and SSL/TLS encryption protocols. Sent emails will be automatically encrypted and signed with your own keys.

Comfortable and lightweight operation

The application provides users with an easy-to-understand and well-organized configuration from the get-go. For example, when the application starts for the first time and prompts the user to create an initial mailbox, this can be in either their home folder or a custom location.

Thanks to its comfortable and lightweight operation, users will be able to use Sylpheed for sending and receiving electronic mail messages without much hassle. Supported account types include Gmail or custom POP3 and IMAP4.

Supported operating systems and desktop environments

Besides Linux and Microsoft Windows, Sylpheed runs on many other Unix-like operating systems, such as BSD and Mac OS X. Its well-polished and beautiful user interface uses the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which means that it integrates well will GNOME, MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce and LXDE desktop environments.

Several lightweight Linux distributions include Sylpheed as their default email client, but if you’re looking for a professional-grade application that can do more than just emailing, try Evolution or Mozilla Thunderbird.

What is new in this release:

• The feature to use multiple signatures in one account was added.
• The edit group dialog of the address book was improved to allow multilple selection and display its available list with folder tree.
• The menu 'Tools - Open configuration/attachments folder' was added.
• Printing settings and page setup are now saved.
• The Japanese manual was updated.
• IMAP: SUBSCRIBE command is explicitly issued for a newly created folder by CREATE.
• Unix: the search location of SSL certificates for OpenBSD was added (#222).
• Win32: a notice about not removing user data in the installer was modified.
• Win32: OpenSSL was updated to 1.0.2l.

What is new in version :

• The feature to use multiple signatures in one account was added.
• The edit group dialog of the address book was improved to allow multilple selection and display its available list with folder tree.
• The menu 'Tools - Open configuration/attachments folder' was added.
• Printing settings and page setup are now saved.
• The Japanese manual was updated.
• IMAP: SUBSCRIBE command is explicitly issued for a newly created folder by CREATE.
• Unix: the search location of SSL certificates for OpenBSD was added (#222).
• Win32: a notice about not removing user data in the installer was modified.
• Win32: OpenSSL was updated to 1.0.2l.

What is new in version 3.5.1:

• New plug-in APIs for compose view were added.
• Autotools scripts and documents were updated.

What is new in version 3.5.0:

• New features:
• Windows / widgets are now adjusted to their optimal sizes by reference to system DPI value.
• Fade effect was added to the notification window.
• The option to specify startup online mode was added.
• Improvements:
• Win32: Menus became more native-looking.
• Win32: File dialogs were improved.
• Win32: sylpheed.exe executable became DPI-Aware.
• Mbox locking became NFS-safe (#202).
• Sylpheed.desktop file was updated.
• The original file names of attachments are kept when opening them, and shorter suffixes are added in the case they conflict.
• TLSv1.1 and TLSv1.2 will be enabled for STARTTLS when OpenSSL 1.0.1 or above is used.
• Other changes:
• Hebrew translation was added.
• Component updates:
• Win32: included third-party libraries were updated:
• GTK+ 2.24.23
• GLib 2.38.2
• GDK-Pixbuf 2.30.7
• Pango 1.36.3
• Cairo 1.10.2
• libpng 1.14.19
• GPGME 1.4.3
• OpenSSL 0.9.8zh
• Win32: dependency on libtiff was removed (GDI+ is used to support tiff images).
• Bugfixes:
• Win32: System Icon issue when ran on Windows 7 (#13, #85)
• Win32: Scroll jumping issue on text views when using Japanese IME
• Win32: the bug that maximized state was unset on minimize was fixed.
• Win32: the crash when linked with newer MSVCRT was fixed.
• A bug that reorder of filter rules by DnD was not saved was fixed.
• A fix for ARM architecture was made.
• Other bugfixes and stability improvements were made.

What is new in version 3.4.3:

• The bug that wrote the first part of data if the message body in the IMAP4 responses didn't end with CR+LF was fixed (#84).
• The crash when displaying HTML messages was fixed (#215).
• Win32: the crash when linked with newer MSVCRT was fixed.
• Win32: libjpeg was updated.
• Win32: libtiff was updated.
• Win32: libpng was updated to 1.2.53.
• Win32: OpenSSL was updated to 0.9.8zg.
• Win32: included SSL certificates were updated.

What is new in version 3.4.2:

• In this release, the OpenSSL library included in the Windows version was updated, and its security vulnerability was fixed.
• The bug that POP3 remote mailbox feature didn't show error if local mailbox was inaccessible on downloading messages was also fixed.

What is new in version 3.4.1:

• This release fixes an important bug that would lose mails when local mailbox was inaccessible on POP3 receiving.

What is new in version 3.4:

• New features:
• New message notification window was added.
• Icon theme feature was added.
• SSL certificate hostname is validated now (#167).
• PGP encrypt-to-self feature was added.
• The feature to save message as plain text was added.
• An option to the junk filter setting was added: 'Do not classify message as junk if sender is in the address book' (enabled by default) (#77)
• Safe mode (which does not load plug-ins) was added (--safe-mode).
• Improvements:
• The existence of destination folders are checked when creating a filter rule.
• The recursion level is restricted up to 64 when scanning local mailbox (prevents infinite loop with symlink. Note: Linux automatically limits the symlink loop up to 40)
• The labels used in POP3 remote mailbox dialog was modified.
• POP3: do not disconnect immediately but send QUIT command on normal POP3 errors (prevents deleted messages appear again).
• Win32: socket connection timeout setting now works on Windows (Note: on Windows XP, maximum timeout value will be 21 seconds by default).
• Some non-standard Date header patterns are handled now.
• Win32: start menu shortcuts are translated.
• Quotation of forwarded messages is enabled for template now.
• When applying a template for a new message, current date is inserted with '%d'.
• When marking a message as junk and moving it to a junk folder, proper junk folder is selected instead of default one.
• Printing now prints all texts in messages, not only the first one.
• The HTML parser now supports tag.
• An option to prefer HTML part in multipart/alternative was added (default: off).
• Compose window is raised when the external editor exits.
• The order of templates became stable.
• HTML mail is distinguished from other messages with attachments now (#89).
• 'Last 30 days' was added to the quick search menu.
• Attached images are rotated based on Exif orientation tag.
• Mac OS X support was improved.
• The Japanese manual was modified so that IE correctly detect its character encoding.
• The rightmost column of folder view and summary view became easier to resize.
• Appropriate columns of folder view, summary view, etc. are auto-expanded by window resize when using GTK+ 2.14 or later.
• The initial setup dialog is now resizable.
• Other changes:
• Basque translation was added.
• Bugfixes:
• Bugfixes of HTML display were made.
• Escaped special characters in HTML links are now properly unescaped (#120).

What is new in version 3.3.1:

• IMAP: "INBOX" folder became case insensitive as specified in RFC 3501.
• IMAP: server name for cache directory is escaped now (fixes cache creation when using IPv6 address for server name on Windows).
• IMAP: the bug that double-quote (") and backslash (\) in folder/username/password were not escaped and could not be used on IMAP4 was fixed.
• IMAP: parsing of folder names that contain brackets was fixed.
• Config.guess and config.sub included in the tarball were updated to the latest version.
• The bug that 'File - Folder - Move folder...' menu didn't work was fixed.
• The bug that MIME nest level restriction was not working was fixed.
• Many defects discovered by Coverity Scan were fixed:
• FILE handle resource leaks
• memory leaks
• possible buffer overrun
• strict error checks
• correct null pointer checks
• Win32: the tray icon is recreated when explorer.exe crashes now.
• Win32: the included SSL certificates were updated (based on ca-certificates_20111211_all.deb in Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS).
• Win32: OpenSSL was updated to 0.9.8y.
• Win32: libpng was updated to 1.2.51.

What is new in version 3.4.0 Beta 7:

• Win32: the tray icon is recreated when explorer.exe crashes now.
• Win32: the included SSL certificates were updated (based on ca-certificates_20111211_all.deb).
• The bug that 'File - Folder - Move folder...' menu didn't work was fixed.
• The bug that MIME nest level restriction was not working was fixed.
• Many defects were fixed:
• FILE handle resource leaks
• memory leaks
• possible buffer overrun
• strict error checks
• correct null pointer checks

What is new in version 3.3.0:

• New features:
• The ability of opening external eml files was added.
• Sylpheed now accepts mailto: and file: URL without command-line option.
• (sylpheed file:///path/to/file.eml)
• Attached files can be opened from the attachment tool menu.
• 'Export only selected messages' option was added to the message export dialog.
• Improvements:
• The option to specify the position of the attach tool button was added.
• The header labels on the header view now have tooltips.
• Win32: mailto and .eml association are automatically set to default on Windows 7 on installation.
• The sylpheed.desktop file was modified so that desktop shells can recognize Sylpheed as rfc822 and mailto handler.
• Attached files are now placed first on the message view.
• The attachment tool menu was moved to the left of the header view.
• The option 'Toggle attachment list view with tab' and 'Show attached files first on message view' were added at 'Common preferences - Display - Attachment'.
• The import/export of messages became cancellable.
• config.rpath and install-sh script in the tarball were updated.
• Other changes:
• The Japanese manual was updated.
• Security fix:
• Win32: included libtiff library was updated to 3.9.7 (security fix).
• Bugfixes:
• Some compilation fixes were made.
• A minor memory leak related to tooltips was fixed.
• The drag-without-button-press bug on IMAP folders was fixed (#93).
• The sylpheed.spec file was fixed so that it builds on x86_64 platform, and also builds sylpheed-plugins package.
• IMAP FETCH command response parser was fixed.

What is new in version 3.2.0:

• New features:
• Each attachments on the message view now have graphical label and popup menu.
• The UI for Attachments tab was changed to save the space. Users now also can do 'Save all' without switching the view.
• The 'show_attach_tab' option (without UI), which reverts the attachments interface to the old one, was added.
• Multiple keywords search of the quick search was implemented.
• The context menu of the folder view and the summary view can be popped up using Menu key or Shift+F10.
• Win32: IPv6 support was enabled again.
• Win32: SylFilter is now also included in the installer. The default junk commands were also changed to sylfilter.
• Win32: an option to play sound when new messages arrive was added.
• Win32: The file selector now follows Windows shortcut (.lnk).
• Improvements:
• Number of maximum characters per line of configuration files was increased.
• Compose window will not be closed if saving of message to outbox failed.
• Sender's e-mail address became not guessable from generated Message-Id.
• New plug-in APIs were added.
• 'Account Preferences - Advanced - Put deleted messages in' account setting actually works now.
• MIME debug output was modified.
• Both filtered and original numbers of messages are displayed on the status label now.
• The POP3 remote mailbox now supports SOCKS proxy.
• The POP3 remote mailbox now retrieves headers from the newer messages (useful for slow connection).
• The POP3 remote mailbox can now reload message headers after the loading is stopped.
• News (NNTP) now supports SOCKS proxy.
• The details of new message counts are displayed on the tooltip of the tray icon.
• Address auto-completion now also matches to the subsequent part of the name of contacts.
• On file selection dialog, the last selected folders are preserved between sessions now.
• DNS lookup error is now distinguished from other connection errors.
• The clip icon was replaced with more visible one on selected row.
• Performance improvements:
• The performance of reading cache files was improved by using memory mapped file (requires GTK+ >= 2.8).
• Win32: the launch of Windows installer became faster.
• Other changes:
• Sylfilter command was added as a preset of junk filter program.
• The blinking period of the tray icon was extended to 10 seconds.
• 'Is shorter than' became the default for 'Age' filter condition.
• The Japanse manual was updated, and the encoding of Japanese manual was changed to UTF-8 to prevent display failure on some browsers.
• Bugfixes:
• Queue control headers are removed when moving messages from queue folders to trash.
• Duplicated keyboard accelerators on some dialogs were fixed.
• The focus on quick search entry is not stolen by the refresh of summary.
• The HTML parser was modified.
• The check of IMAP AUTHENTICATE response was fixed.
• The compilation failure with GLib 2.32 or later was fixed.
• The bug that a MIME part that didn't have its name could not be saved was fixed.
• Address autocomplete drop-down list with newer version of GTK+ was fixed (#52).
• Line-space for auto-wrapped lines now reflects the line-space setting (#64).
• Some minor fixes for IMAP were made.
• Some memory leaks were fixed.
• Other bugfixes were made.
• Some compiler warnings were removed.
• Win32: OpenSSL was updated to 0.9.8x. (0.9.8w in Sylpheed 3.1.4 is also not vulnerable)

What is new in version 3.2.0 Beta 5:

• The POP3 remote mailbox now supports SOCKS proxy.
• The POP3 remote mailbox now retrieves headers from the newer messages (useful for slow connection).
• The POP3 remote mailbox can now reload message headers after the loading is stopped.
• The previous change of the message view (always show the message view on startup) was reverted except for vertical view mode.
• The crash bug that occurred when IMAP message fetching and new message checking happened at the same time was fixed.

What is new in version 3.1.1:

• The column width of the address book will be saved now.
• The keyboard shortcut of 'File/Send' menu of compose window was changed to prevent accidental sending.
• The bug that caused occasional crash when summary was updated while receiving messages was fixed.
• The compilation problem on some environment was fixed.
• Some locale problems on Mac OS X was fixed.
• The compilation error on newer gcc was fixed.
• Finnish translation was added.
• Win32: included libtiff library was updated to 3.9.5 (security fix).
• Win32: OpenSSL was updated to 0.9.8r.