&Daniel.Naber; &Daniel.Naber.mail;
&David.Rugge; &David.Rugge.mail;
&Marc.Mutz; &Marc.Mutz.mail;
&Michel.Boyer; &Michel.Boyer.mail;
&Laurent.Montel; &Laurent.Montel.mail;
&Scarlett.Clark; &Scarlett.Clark.mail;
&David.Bryant; &David.Bryant.mail;
2021-02-13
5.14.2 (Applications 20.04.2)

# Configure &kmail;

## General Information

Configure &kmail; Dialog
Configure &kmail; Dialog

The Configure &kmail; Dialog

&kmail;'s configuration window lets you configure &kmail;. You can reach it via Settings Configure &kmail;...

The dialog has several buttons across the bottom.

Help

  This will open The &kmail; Handbook (this manual) at the appropriate page.

Reset

  This resets all the changes you have made since you last saved the settings.

Defaults

  This will reset the configuration options on the current page to the default values.

OK

  This saves the settings and closes the configuration dialog.

Apply

  This saves the settings without closing the configuration dialog.

Cancel

  This closes the configuration dialog without saving the changes you have made.

The configuration dialog is divided into six subsets, each of them represented by one of the icons in the list on the left. These subsets are described in detail below.

## Accounts Page

The Accounts page is automatically presented when Settings Configure &kmail;... is selected. There are four tabs: Identities, Receiving, Sending, and LDAP server. (The Identities tab is illustrated in the Configure &kmail; section above.)

### Identities Tab

You can find a quick introduction to the Identities tab in the Getting Started section.

This page allows you to create one or more Identities, &ie;, combinations of a name, an email address, and some other settings. For example, you can create one identity for business communication and another for personal use. If you have more than one email address, you can create one identity for each address. You will then be able to select a suitable identity whenever you compose a new message.

This dialog consists of a list of identities, plus buttons to manage them. After initial setup, the list will always show at least one identity, which is then the Default identity. To add a new identity to the identity list, click on the Add... button.

### The New Identity Dialog

New Identity Dialog
New Identity Dialog

The New Identity Dialog

Enter a name for the new identity in the New Identity edit field. This name will be shown in the identity list.

You can choose how the new identity is initialized by checking one of three radio buttons.

With empty fields

  All fields of the new identity will be cleared, or preset with standard values.

Use System Settings values

  Uses the values from your default identity.

Duplicate existing identity

  Copies all fields from an existing identity. You may choose which identity to copy from by selecting the corresponding entry in the Existing identities drop down box.

### General

Identity General
Identity General

Identity General

The General tab allows you to specify some basic settings for the currently selected identity.

Your name

  Enter your full name here (sometimes also called display name). Although this field is not mandatory, you should enter your name here.

Organization

  Enter your organization here. This field is optional.

Email address

  Enter your email address here, &ie;, something like `joe@example.com`.

  #### Email address

  So if your address is Joe User <joe@example.com>, you should enter `Joe User` into the Your name field and `joe@example.com` into the Email address field.

Email aliases

  This field contains alias addresses that also belong to this identity (as opposed to representing a different identity). You may define multiple aliases. To add another alias. enter an email address in the Email aliases: field, then click the &plus; Add button

  #### Email aliases

  Primary address: first.last@example.org

  Aliases: first@example.org and last@example.org

### Cryptography

Identity Cryptography
Identity Cryptography

Identity Cryptography

The Cryptography tab allows you to specify the &openpgp; and/or &smime; keys associated with this identity, and to choose the preferred (cryptographic) message format to use.

OpenPGP signing key:

  Here you may select an &openpgp; key for signing messages written with this identity in effect. For brevity, only the short key id of selected keys is shown. Hovering over the item will display more information in a tooltip. To select an existing key, use the drop down list. If you wish to create a new public / private key pair, select Generate a new key pair.

OpenPGP encryption key:

  Here you may select an &openpgp; key for encrypting messages when this identity and are in effect. This key is also used for the function.

&smime; signing certificate:

  Here you may select an x.509 certificate used to sign messages written with this identity in effect. &kmail; cannot generate x.509 certificates. They are issued by certificate authorities. If you have added such a certificate to your key ring, &kmail; can import and use it.

&smime; encryption certificate:

  Here you may select an x.509 certificate for encrypting messages when this identity and are in effect.

Preferred format:

  Here you can choose the default cryptographic message format to use with this identity. You may either select one of the four formats supported by &kmail;, or leave the option at the recommended default setting of Any; this will choose the right format for each recipient you specify, and may create multiple copies of the message, some signed and/or encrypted with an x.509 certificate, and the others signed and/or encrypted with an &openpgp; key.

Automatically sign messages:

  Checking this box causes &kmail; to affix your digital signature to messages composed by this identity unless this option is manually overridden in the Composer window.

Automatically encrypt messages:

  Checking this box causes &kmail; to encrypt messages composed by this identity whenever such encryption is possible (unless overridden in the Composer window).

### Advanced

Identity Advanced
Identity Advanced

Identity Advanced

The Advanced tab allows you to specify some infrequently used settings for the identity you're currently editing.

Reply-To address:

  Enter the address to which replies to your messages should be sent. You need this field only if it is different from your normal address (specified using the Name and Email Address fields on the General tab), since replies default to the sender's address anyway.

  This field is useful if you want replies to your mail to go somewhere else than your regular email address, &eg;, if you are using this identity to send messages from an email address that cannot receive replies.

  Some mailing lists overwrite this header field with their post address (to ensure that replies go to the list instead of to individuals). So the reliability of this field is limited, and it should be used with caution.

CC addresses:

  Optionally enter one or more addresses, separated by commas, to which carbon copies of your messages should be sent. When you compose a message with this identity, the CC field will be filled with these addresses.

BCC addresses:

  Optionally enter addresses, separated by commas, to which blind copies of your messages should be sent. When you compose a message with this identity, the BCC field will be filled with these addresses. If you want to send a BCC to the same address for every identity you define, see the Headers tab of the Composer subset (create a custom BCC header).

Dictionary:

  Select the default dictionary for the current identity.

Sent-mail folder:

  Select the folder in which messages should be saved after sending them from this identity. &IMAP; users should consider changing this to an &IMAP; folder, so their sent-mail is stored on a server instead of being stored in a local folder. Then they can access sent messages from a different location.

  You can exercise more fine-grained control over where to file sent messages by creating a corresponding message filter that is applied to outgoing messages.

Drafts folder:

  Select the folder in which drafts should be saved when using this identity. &IMAP; users should consider changing this to an &IMAP; folder, so their drafts are stored on a server instead of being stored in a local folder. That way they can easily continue to work on their drafts from a different location.

Templates folder:

  Select the folder in which templates should be saved when using this identity. Please see Compose from templates for more information about templates.

Outgoing Account:

  Specify an alternative &SMTP; / &Sendmail; / &Microsoft; Exchange server to be used when sending messages from this identity.

  You need to configure outgoing mail servers first, before you can choose them from the list. You can do this on the Sending tab of the Accounts page.

Attach my vCard to message

  Choose this option if you want to attach a vCard file to each message sent from this identity. A short dialog will ensue.

  With empty fields

    This option opens a dialog just like the &kaddressbook; Adding Contact Data dialog. Enter your name, email address, &etc;, then click OK to create a new vCard.

  From existing vCard

    This option opens a browse directories dialog which allows you to to select a .vcf file. (Hint: Use &kaddressbook; to export a vCard file that can be used here.)

  Duplicate existing vCard

    This option opens a drop down list of all the other identities already defined, so you may select the vCard associated with one of them.

Autocorrection language:

  Use the drop down list to select the language associated with the optional autocorrection tool when using this identity.

Default domain:

  This field is filled with the value from the `hostnames` file (in /etc) by default. The Composer will append this domain name to any purely local email address you specify. This feature is primarily useful in a &Sendmail; environment.

  #### Default domain

  Default domain set to `kde.org`; "To:" address set to `foo`.

  Composer sends the message to foo@kde.org.

### Templates

Identity Templates
Identity Templates

Identity Templates

Here you may create and manage custom templates for this identity to use when composing new messages, replying to someone, or forwarding messages inline. The message templates support substitution commands. You may simply type them in, or select them from the Insert Command menu. Three kinds of commands are provided.

Original Message > / Current Message >

  These commands extract information from the message you're replying to, or forwarding, and insert that information into the composition window.

Process with External Programs >

  These commands will pipe the message to which you are responding through an external program, then insert the output into &kmail;'s composition window.

Miscellaneous >

  These commands perform functions like choosing the dictionary the spell checker should use, or inserting the contents of a text file into the composition window.

The Quote indicator: field allows you to override the default quotation indicator character ">". The Copy Global Templates button will reset all the custom templates defined here to &kmail;'s defaults. (You can achieve the same end result by unselecting the Use custom message templates for this identity check box at the top left of this dialog box.)

Templates specified here are identity-specific. They override global templates, but can be overridden by folder-specific templates if those are specified.

### Signature

Identity Signature
Identity Signature

Identity Signature

This tab allows you to specify a signature (sometimes called footer or disclaimer) to be appended to each message sent from this identity.

This type of signature has nothing to do with the (digital) signatures discussed in the Cryptography section. It is a bit confusing to call this a signature, but since the term is already used everywhere else, we keep this nomenclature. Just remember that these "signatures" and digital signatures are two completely different things.

Check the Enable signature option if you want &kmail; to append a signature when using this identity. To automatically append it to every new message you must also select Automatically insert signature option on the Composer configuration page.

&kmail; can obtain the signature text from various sources. The default is Input Field Below. Just enter your signature in the textbox. If you want to use rich text, select the Use &HTML; checkbox at the lower left. A formatting toolbar will then appear.

The traditional procedure in Unix is to read the text from a file called `.signature` in your home folder. This file may be shared among several programs, so the same signature appears in every email program you use. To do this, select File from the Obtain Signature text from: drop down menu. If you want to edit the file, click the Edit File button.

&kmail; can also read the signature text from the output of a command. You can use programs such as `fortune` to create a randomly selected signature for each new message. Everything the program prints onto stdout is caught and used as the signature text. To read the text from the output of a command, select the Output of Command option. Enter the command (with full path) in the Specify command: edit field.

On the Internet, signatures are by convention separated from the body of the message by a line containing only the three characters -- (dash, dash, space). If the Prepend separator to signature option has been set in the Composer configuration, &kmail; will automatically prepend this line to the signature text (unless it is already present).

### Picture

Identity Picture
Identity Picture

Identity Picture

&kmail; can send a small (48x48 pixels), low-quality, monochrome picture with every message. For example, this could be a picture of you, or a glyph. It is shown in the recipient's mail client (if supported).

Send picture with every message

  Check this box if you want &kmail; to add a so-called X-Face header to messages written with this identity. An X-Face is a small (48x48 pixels) black and white image that some mail clients are able to display.

Obtain picture from:

  This drop down list gives you two ways to select an image.

External Source (the default)
  Select File...

    Use this button to select an image file from which to create the picture. Use a high-contrast image that is square, or nearly square. A light background helps improve the result.

  Set From Address Book

    You may use this button to create a scaled-down version of the picture you have set in your own address book entry.

Input Field Below

  Use this option to enter an arbitrary X-Face string. Examples are available at https://ace.home.xs4all.nl/X-Faces/

## Email Accounts

You can find a quick introduction to both sending and receiving accounts in the Setting up your Account section.

This page allows you to create one or more (incoming and outgoing) accounts, &ie;, combinations of mail servers, login information, and other settings. Typically, you will create one outgoing (used for sending messages) and one incoming (used to retrieve messages) account. You may create as many accounts as you want, though, and assign each one to a different identity. Or you may set up just one identity, and decide which account to use each time you compose a message. This page also lets you set up one or more LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) servers.

### Receiving

Receiving Account
Receiving Account

The Receiving Account Tab

For basic information, see Setting up your Account: Receiving.

The column of buttons on the right let you Add... a new account, and Modify or Remove an existing account. You ought not modify or remove the Local Folders entry, which is present by default. The Restart button will simulate a program restart.

The Customize Accounts Order... button opens a dialog that lets you move any IMAP accounts you have created, and the group of accounts associated with Local Folders, higher or lower in the list.

The Retrieval Options popup menu for each account lets you specify whether &kmail; should check for new mail immediately after it has been started. You may also select Include in Manual Mail Check and Switch offline on &kmail; Shutdown.

If Detailed new mail notification is enabled then &kmail; will show the number of new messages for each folder provided you have chosen to be notified with a dialog. More advanced notification options, like playing a sound or synthesizing speech, are available via the Other Actions button.

### Sending

Sending Account
Sending Account

The Sending Account Tab

The Sending tab lets you define new outgoing mail servers, and also set some options that affect all the messages you send.

For basic information, see Setting up your Account: Sending.

When you click Add... or Modify... the Create Outgoing Account or Configure account dialogs will open respectively. For sending via &Sendmail; or similar programs you may specify a name and the location of the &Sendmail; program. For &SMTP; you must specify the Name, Outgoing mail server, and Port of the server. Server requires authentication will enable the Login and Password fields. If you are not sure about the security settings, you should make &kmail; test for the best settings by using Auto Detect on the Advanced tab.

In the Before sending section, Confirm action will pop up a confirmation box every time you send a message, while Check spelling will invoke the spell checker before a message is sent.

Send messages in outbox folder lets you specify when queued messages, &ie;, messages in the outbox folder waiting to be sent, should be dispatched. You may choose among three options.

Never Automatically

  Queued messages will only be sent if you select File Send queued messages.

On Manual Mail Checks

  Queued messages will be sent after you have manually checked for new mail, &eg; with File Check Mail. Of course, you may also send the queued messages manually via File Send queued messages.

On All Mail Checks

  Queued messages will be sent after every check for new mail, &ie;, after automatic mail checks, and also after manual mail checks. Of course, you may also send the queued messages manually via File Send queued messages.

Default send method: lets you define what happens when a message is sent. If Send now is selected, the message is sent to the mail server immediately. If Send later is selected, the message is queued in the outbox to be sent later with the File Send Queued Messages command, or automatically when you check your mail, depending on the setting chosen for Send messages in outbox folder, above.

The Enable Undo Send: checkbox lets you specify an interval of time (from 10 to 50 seconds) during which you may abort mail transport. Your message will be queued, and a small Undo Send button will appear in the notification area. Click the button (in time) to stop the message from being sent.

### LDAP Servers

LDAP Servers
LDAP Servers

The LDAP Servers Tab

Use this dialog to configure any LDAP servers you wish to access. Please consult the &kaddressbook; Appendix for more details.

## Appearance Page

The Appearance page lets you adjust many aspects of &kmail;'s graphical user interface, including color schemes, font selection, and even the physical arrangement of the message list in the main window.

### General

Appearance General
Appearance General

The Appearance (General) Tab

If the Close message window after replying or forwarding option is activated, &kmail; will close the separate message window when a composer window (for a reply, or to forward the message) is opened. Enable access key is selected by default. Access keys allow you to use the keyboard for functions normally done with the mouse, such as following links. For more information see Access keys.

Enable Reduce font size for quoted text to show quoted text (in a reply) with a smaller type face. Show expand/collapse quote marks displays little widgets along with each bit of quoted text. These allow you to show (+) or hide (-) nested quotes beyond a certain level. This is useful in protracted email conversations where nobody deletes what has gone before.

Changing Override character encoding: from its default value Auto will force the use of the specified encoding for all messages, no matter what the &MIME; headers say. Minimum font size: lets you control the smallest font &kmail; will use. Set this higher if you have trouble reading really small fonts.

System Tray provides three ways to control &kmail;'s interaction with the &kde; task bar / panel. If Enable system tray icon is selected, a small icon () will be displayed in the system tray area. If Start minimized to tray is activated, only this icon will appear when &kmail; is launched. Selecting Show unread email in taskbar causes the number of currently unread messages to appear on &kmail;'s taskbar button.

When the icon is visible, you may hide &kmail;'s main window either by clicking on the icon or by clicking on the window's close button. Clicking on the icon will make &kmail;'s main window visible again. If you click on the icon with the &RMB;, a context menu will appear. You can check for new mail, create a new message, or quit &kmail;. If there are any unread messages, the entry New Messages In > will appear, along with a list of the folders containing unread messages. Select one of these folders, and it will be opened in &kmail;'s main window.

### Fonts

Appearance Fonts
Appearance General

The Appearance (Fonts) Tab

This section lets you tailor the fonts &kmail; uses. Select Use custom fonts to activate the dialog. Apply to: Message Body sets the font for the reader pane. The Composer option sets the font in which new plain text messages are shown while they are being written. Message List changes the font used to display the message list. You can also choose special fonts for Unread, Important, and Action Item message list entries. Printing Output alters the font used when printing. Fixed Width Font affects the display of some &HTML; messages.

Show only monospaced fonts restricts the number of fonts available. Only the names of fixed-width fonts will be displayed when this option is in effect.

### Colors

Appearance Colors
Appearance Colors

The Appearance (Colors) Tab

This section allows you to change the color of a few things by double clicking on an entry in the list box. Select Use custom colors to activate this feature. Select Do not change color from original HTML mail to preserve the color scheme selected by the sender of any &HTML; message.

Recycle colors on deep quoting will restart the quote coloring at the first level after the third level of quoting has been reached. Note that the Quoted text colors only work in the message reader, not in the composer. If you want folders which are getting close to their quota (space allotment, used on &IMAP; servers) to be displayed in a different color, you may specify a percentage value as a threshold.

### Layout

Default Layout
Default Layout

The Appearance (Layout) Tab

This tab lets you configure the layout of &kmail;'s main window.

In the Folder List section you may choose between the Long folder list (default option), which uses the full height of the window, and the Short folder list. With the Short option, if you have selected Show the message preview pane below the message list, the message list and the folder list will occupy a horizontal strip, with the message preview pane using the entire bottom portion of the window. If you have selected Show the message preview pane next to the message list, the folder list and the message list will occupy a vertical strip, with the message preview pane on the right.

Select Show folder quick search field to create a small text box at the top of the folder list. When you type something in that box, only the folders whose names match the characters you entered will appear. Clear the box to display all your folders.

The Show Favorite Folders View section allows you to change how your favorite folders are displayed. As Icons uses a lot of space, so if you have several favorite folders you might try As List. If you do not care about favorite folders you can disable this feature altogether by selecting Never.

On by default, Folder Tooltips display additional information (total number of messages, unread messages, and storage size) when hovering over a folder with the mouse pointer. Select Never to disable this feature.

In the Message Preview Pane section you can choose where in relation to the message list you want the message preview pane to appear. Or you can remove it entirely, and use only the full screen reader to view selected messages (press &Enter;).

### Message List

Appearance Message List
Appearance Message List

The Appearance (Message List) Tab

Use this dialog to alter the appearance of the Message List pane.

If you select Display tooltips for messages and group headers, you will see a brief summary of each message (or group -- depends on the view mode) when the mouse cursor hovers over a message list item.

Default Aggregation and Default Theme may be overridden using the Folder Properties dialog for each folder individually. Clicking the Configure button opens a window to customize the pre-configured aggregations / themes; you can create your own schemes that way.

Eight aggregation modes and three themes have been pre-configured.

Default aggregation: (drop down list)
  Activity by Date, Flat

    This view uses day-by-day groups. Messages are not threaded. So for example, in Today you will simply find all the messages that arrived today. The groups are displayed by default in reverse chronological order, and labeled "Today", "Yesterday", then the preceding five days of the week, followed by mm/dd/yy.

  Activity by Date, Threaded

    This view uses day-by-day groups. Messages are threaded. So for example, in Today you will find all the messages that arrived today and all the threads that have been active today. Uses the same grouping as Activity by Date, Flat.

  Current Activity, Flat

    This view uses smart date range groups. Messages are not threaded. So for example, in Today you will simply find all the messages that arrived today. The groups are displayed by default in reverse chronological order: "Today", "Yesterday", the five preceding days of the week, "Last Week", "Two Weeks Ago", and then month by month.

  Current Activity, Threaded

    This view uses smart date range groups. Messages are threaded. So for example, in Today you will find all the messages that arrived today and all the threads that have been active today. Otherwise the same as Current Activity, Flat.

  Flat Date View

    This is a plain, old-fashioned list of messages sorted by date. No groups and no threading.

  Senders/Receivers, Flat

    This view groups the messages by senders or receivers (depending on the folder type). You may specify senders (or receivers) in the Folders Folder Properties dialog ("View" tab, Show Column:). Messages are not threaded.

  Standard Mailing List

    This is a plain, old-fashioned mailing list view: no groups and heavy threading, ordered by the date each thread began.

  Thread Starters

    This view arranges the messages in threads and then groups the threads by the starting user.

  Configure... button

    To create a custom aggregation theme, click the Configure... button. Select an existing aggregation similar to the one you want to create, then click Clone Aggregation. If none are similar, click the New Aggregation button. The General tab allows you to change the Name: and Description:. The Groups & Threading tab lets you configure several elements to customize your aggregation.

    - Grouping: lets you select from dates, sender/receiver or none. With the smart options &kmail; will group related emails together.

    - Group expand policy: lets you set whether &kmail; will automatically expand grouped emails, or not.

    - Threading: allows you to decide if &kmail; will include references and subject to determine perfect threading. You may also turn off threading altogether.

    - Thread leader: lets you change the leader of the thread: most recent message, or the first one.

    - Thread expand policy: allows you to change how &kmail; determines whether a thread should be expanded.

    The Advanced tab lets you change the Fill view strategy: Choose "Favor speed" if you have a slow connection. "Interactivity" will show all of your current conversations first. "Batch" mode will not do any sorting.

Default Theme: (drop down list)
  Classic

    A simple, backward compatible, single row theme

  Smart

    A smart multi-line and multi-item theme

  Smart with Clickable Status

    A smart multi-line and multi-item theme with a clickable status column

  Configure... button

    To create a custom message list theme, click the Configure... button. Select an existing theme similar to the one you want to create, then click Clone Theme. If none are similar, click the New Theme button. The General tab allows you to change the Name: and Description:.

    The Appearance tab lets you configure visible columns and status items. To add a column, right click the column bar and select Add Column. Name the column, then select what the column will represent from the Header click sorts messages: drop down list. Visible by default is automatically checked. Uncheck it if you only want the column to be available on the context menu for the clickable sort bar. Drag the appropriate label from the Content Items to the column view box under the column bar, &eg;, if you chose to add a size column you would drag the Size label underneath the Size column. Continue to do this until you have all the columns you desire. You can change the font and color of column items through the view area &RMB; menu. Move, delete and resize columns via the &RMB; menu on the column bar.

    The Advanced tab lets you show headers. You may also change the size of status icons.

In the Date Display section you may choose one of three date formats (or create your own). The Standard Format shows the day of the week and the date. The Localized Format is shorter, omitting the day of the week. The Smart format will show today, yesterday, &etc; If you want to create a Custom date format, just click on Custom format information and follow the directions.

### Message Tags

Appearance Tags
Appearance Tags

The Appearance (Tags) Tab

&kmail; by default gives you several ways to mark messages (Important / Action Item / Birthday), accessible via the Message Mark Message > sub-menu. You may also define additional tags to help you categorize messages.

Use the Available Tags input field to name your special tag. Use the &plus; button to add this name to the list. Use the − button to remove a tag. (The "Birthday" tag is built-in, and cannot be removed.) Use the up and down arrow buttons to sort the items in the list.

Highlight an item in the list to activate the Tag Settings dialog. You may choose any or all of six options.

Change text color:

  Select this option to display tagged message list entries in a different color. A color palette will be presented when you choose this option. Select a preset color, or choose "Custom..." for more flexibility.

Change background color:

  Choose this option to alter the background color of tagged message list entries.

Change font:

  You may select either a bold or italic type face.

Message tag icon:

  Click this button to open an icon selection dialog. The icon will be displayed on tagged message list entries.

Shortcut:

  Use this button to create a keyboard shortcut for associating this tag with selected messages.

Enable toolbar button:

  Select this option to add a new button to the &kmail; toolbar. Clicking the button will tag the currently selected message.

All the tags defined here will automatically appear as new options in the Message Mark Message > sub-menu.

## Composer Page

For a description of how to use the Composer, read this page. To learn more about fine-tuning the Composer's behavior, press on.

### General

Composer General
Composer General

The Composer (General) Tab

This dialog lets you adjust the way &kmail; handles signatures. It also permits you to control some formatting features, to adjust some autocompletion options, and to tweak &kmail;'s autosave feature.

Automatically insert signature

  If checked, your signature as defined on the identity page is automatically included at the end of every message you create (&ie;, new messages, replies, &etc;).

Insert signature above quoted text

  If checked, &kmail; will insert your signature at the top of the composer window, and not at the bottom.

Prepend separator to signature

  If checked, &kmail; will insert "-- " (dash dash space) before your signature if your signature does not begin that way. (This separator line is a de facto internet standard.)

Remove the signature when replying

  If checked, &kmail; will remove the signature from the original message when you compose a reply. Of course, if you have not selected the signature and the Only quote selected text ... option has been checked, &kmail; will omit the signature without referring to this setting.

Only quote selected text when replying

  If checked, &kmail; will quote only the selected text in the message window, instead of the complete message, when replying. With this, it is possible to quickly generate replies that quote only the relevant paragraph(s) to which you are actually replying. If this option is checked and you select nothing, &kmail; will quote the entire message.

Use smart quoting

  If checked, &kmail; will break long lines but will try to keep the correct quoting (&ie;, the > will always be at the start of the line).

Word wrap at column:

  If checked, the word wrap option ( Options Wordwrap in the composer window) will be selected automatically. Use the spin box to set the maximum line length.

Reply or forward using the same visual format as the original message (plain text or HTML)

  If checked, &kmail; will always enable the rich text editing toolbar if the message to which you are responding contains an &HTML; &MIME; header. If this option is not selected, the composer retains the toolbar state from the previous session.

Improve plain text version of &HTML; message

  If checked, &kmail; will append footnotes to the plain text version of every message composed in &HTML;. These plain text footnotes will be clickable links pointing to any resources coded as anchor tags (aka links) in the &HTML; version of the message.

Automatically request message disposition notifications

  If checked, will default to on. Check this option only if you know what you are doing. &mdn;s are considered a nuisance (or are simply ignored) by a lot of people. It is better to request them only when necessary.

Use addresses indexed from emails for autocompletion

  If checked, &kmail; will include the addresses from all your saved messages in the list of autocompletion targets (&eg;, when you start typing in the To: input field). These will appear as "Contacts found in your data". If you switch this off, only the matching &kaddressbook; entries and "Recent Addresses" will appear in the list. Use the spin box to limit the number of items displayed in the list.

Use recent addresses for autocompletion

  If checked, &kmail; will include the addresses that have been used recently in the list of autocompletion targets (&eg;, when you start typing in the CC: input field). These will appear as "Recent Addresses". If you switch this off, only the matching &kaddressbook; entries and "Contacts found in your data" will appear in the list. Use the spin box to limit the number of items considered "Recent".

Configure Completion ... button

  Click on this button to open the autocompletion configuration dialog. You may adjust the order in which items appear, add or remove "Recent" addresses, and create a blacklist of addresses that should never appear as autocompletion targets. Notice that this dialog may also be invoked from a context menu by clicking the &RMB; in, say, the "To:" field of the composer.

Autosave interval

  A backup copy of the text in the composer window is by default created regularly. This option lets you specify how often a backup copy is created. You can disable autosaving by selecting "No autosave".

### Standard Templates

Composer Standard Templates
Composer Standard Templates

The Composer (Standard Templates) Tab

Here you can edit the default message templates used when you compose a new message, write a reply, or forward a message. Message templates support substitution commands, by simply typing them or selecting them from the Insert Command menu. These are global (default) templates. They may be overridden by per-identity templates or per-folder templates if any such are specified. Most people are happy with the standard default templates. But if you wish to tweak the defaults, this is the place to do it.

For a more detailed explanation of template configuration, please refer to the Identities chapter.

### Custom Templates

Composer Custom Templates
Composer Custom Templates

The Composer (Custom Templates) Tab

Here you can add, edit, and delete custom message templates to use when you compose a reply or forward a message. Create the custom template by typing the name into the input box and press the + button. You can bind a keyboard combination to the template for faster operations.

Message templates support substitution commands, by simply typing them or selecting them from the Insert Command menu.

There are four types of custom templates: used to Reply, Reply to All, Forward, and Universal which can be used for all kinds of operations. You cannot bind a keyboard shortcut to Universal templates.

### Subject

Composer Subject
Composer Subject

The Composer (Subject) Tab

This section contains a list of prefixes for Reply and Forward. If you receive messages that use prefixes differing from the standard prefixes, you may add them to this list so &kmail; will recognize them. &kmail; will then ignore the odd-ball prefixes when sorting messages (and when setting the subject of a reply or a forwarded message), and optionally replace them with Re: or Fwd:, respectively.

### Character Set

Composer Character Set
Composer Character Set

The Composer (Character Set) Tab

Here you can manage the default character sets used for your own messages. Every message you send will be checked to see if it is written with one of the listed character sets, starting at the top of the list. If it is, that character set will be used. If it is not, a dialog will appear and tell you that you must choose a character set via Options Set Encoding.

If you select Keep original charset when replying or forwarding (if possible), the original message's character set will be kept, unless there are now characters that cannot be represented using that set of characters.

### Headers

Composer Headers
Composer Headers

The Composer (Headers) Tab

Check the Use custom message-id suffix checkbox if you want &kmail; to generate Message-Id's with a custom suffix. Enter the desired suffix in the Custom message-id suffix field. Please make sure that the suffix you specify is unique (within the webiverse). The simplest way to ensure uniqueness is to use the name of your own domain, if you have one. If you do not check Use custom Message-Id suffix, &kmail; will automatically generate the complete Message-Id. If you do not know what this is all about, do not choose this option.

The Define custom mime header fields list sets the headers that &kmail; will use for its outgoing messages. You may both invent new fields and overwrite existing ones. This feature is only useful for experts.

### Attachments

Composer Attachments
Composer Attachments

The Composer (Attachments) Tab

If you have to send attachments with filenames containing non-English characters to users of &Microsoft; Outlook or &Microsoft; Outlook Express, you might want to check the Outlook-compatible attachment naming option. &kmail; will then encode the attachment names in a non-standard way that is understood by &Microsoft; Outlook.

When you select this option, &kmail; will create messages that do not comply with email standards, and consequently it is possible that your messages will not be understood by standards-compliant mail clients. So you should not enable this option unless you must.

Check the Enable detection of missing attachments checkbox if you want &kmail; to warn you whenever you are about to send a message without attachments even though the message text contains certain words which may indicate that you want to include an attachment. The list of key words can be modified.

Use the Maximum Attachment Size: spin box to limit the size of any attachments you send. If you try to attach a file larger than the specified limit, &kmail; will issue an error message and refuse to attach the file. Note that this is an individual limit, and not an aggregate limit. Also, the file size is checked before the file is converted to base 64 encoding, if that is necessary.

### Autocorrection

Composer Autocorrection
Composer Autocorrection

The Composer (Autocorrection) Tab

To enable automatic correction of common typing errors, select the Enable autocorrection option. Use the drop down list to choose your language. You may import settings, either from LibreOffice or another &kmail; / &calligra; installation, via the Import ... button. If you need to save your settings for another installation or application, use the Export... button.

#### Autocorrect Options

Simple Autocorrection

  This allows you to configure &kmail; to automatically correct various common typographical errors. Check the boxes next to the autocorrection features you want.

Custom Quotes

  You can replace double or single quotes with “smart” quotes by checking the appropriate box. You can also add a non-breaking space before specific punctuation marks in French text by selecting that option.

Advanced Autocorrection

  You can customize automatic word replacement by selecting this option. To enter a custom string that will be replaced automatically, enter the word to be replaced in the Find box and enter the replacement word in the Replace box, then click the Add button. To remove a custom word from the list, highlight that entry and click Remove.

Exceptions

  This dialog lets you create exceptions where you can tell &kmail; to ignore some periods (end of sentence) and two uppercase letters (&eg;, &kmail;). Enter the exception and click the Add button. To remove the exception, highlight the string and click Remove.

Once you have made all of your autocorrect selections, click Apply, or OK.

### Auto Resize Image

Composer Auto Resize
Composer Auto Resize

The Composer (Auto Resize Image) Tab

In some circumstances you may want to have &kmail; automatically resize image attachments in outgoing emails (&eg;, because of server limits). To do so, select Automatically resize images. There are several options that accompany this feature.

General

  There are three options under "General". If you want to preserve the aspect ratio of all images, select Keep ratio. &kmail; by default asks you if you want to resize before resizing. If you want the program to resize images without asking, unselect Ask before resizing. &kmail; will by default send the resized image in JPG format. If you would rather have such images sent in PNG format, select that from the Fallback to format: drop down box.

Image

  Suppose you have a relative who can only receive image files of a certain size because of their email provider's limits. You can use the Reduce image to maximum dimension: option to select a size to shrink the image to, and enter their email into the filters on the Recipients tab. (The Recipients tab is discussed in further detail below.) If you need a custom size, choose the last option Custom from the width and height drop down boxes, and enter a number of pixels in the text box. You may also enlarge images by selecting Enlarge image to minimum dimension. The last option allows you to skip resizing images that are smaller than the specified file size.

Filename
  Source filter

    If you would like the resizing to be done based on the name of the file, select the appropriate filter here. Suppose you need to send your boss multiple images daily, and your boss requires all of them to be the same size. You could name your work images work1, work2 &etc;, then select Include all files whose names contains one of the patterns and enter work into the Pattern: text box. You can also exclude files in the same way by selecting Exclude all files whose names contains one of the patterns. The default behavior is no filtering.

  Image Format

    Select Resize all images with one of these formats to set a specific format to resize the image to.

    - When this option is enabled, you must click the Select Format... button, then select a format from the dialog.

  Resize filename

    Select Rename resized images with the following pattern: if you would like your resized images to be renamed with a specific pattern. Enter the pattern into the text box. You may use:

    - %t set current time
    - %d set current date
    - %n original filename
    - %e original extension
    - %x new extension
Recipients

  This tab is where you specify recipients who need to receive resized images. You must decide if you need multiple entries or only one, and enter the email(s) into the text box using the ; as a separator when there are multiple items. You may also specify certain recipients for whom images ought not be resized. The default is no filtering.

## Security Page

The Security configuration dialog lets you fine-tune certain rich text (&HTML;) options. It also allows you to control encryption and decryption features, to adjust some built-in anti-phishing logic, and to specify how message disposition notification requests (aka return receipts) are handled. Notice that this dialog does not have anything to do with anti-virus security measures. See the Using &kmail;: The Anti-Virus Wizard chapter if you want anti-virus security.

### Reading

Security Reading
Security Reading

The Security (Reading) Tab

On this tab you can configure security options that affect the way you read messages.

Prefer HTML to plain text

  By default &kmail; will show &HTML; messages in plain text. If you prefer to view messages with &HTML; formatting and layout automatically, select this option. However, we recommend leaving this option off, as security problems with &HTML; might show up.

  You can still easily view messages in &HTML; format by clicking the plain message/HTML message toggle bar on the left hand side of the preview pane.

Allow messages to load external references from the Internet

  If checked, &kmail; can load external images, style sheets, &etc; from the Internet when you view an &HTML; message. We strongly recommend that you leave this option off (although it has no effect until you enable &HTML;).

  By adding external references to their messages, people sending spam can detect when you have looked at their message, your location, and a lot of other information that may get logged on web servers. Note that this option has no effect on &Java; or JavaScript, as these are not supported in &kmail; at all.

Informs if message reading is a suspected email scam

  As email has become more popular, email scams have proliferated. Email scams may include emails made to appear as if they come from legitimate companies, even though they really link to malicious web sites requesting your personal information. This may lead to identity theft, and worse. By default &kmail; analyzes messages for common scams, and will inform you if a message is a suspected scam. We recommend that you keep this feature enabled. If you wish to disable these warnings, uncheck Informs if message reading is a suspected email scam.

  If legitimate emails are being flagged, (&eg;, from trusted friends), you can add their email addresses to the Whitelist: by clicking the Add... button and entering an address into the dialog that pops up. Please note that at this time, only complete email addresses can be whitelisted.

Check URL with Phishing Google System

  Select this option to force &kmail; to consult Google's database of suspected phishing web sites when URLs are embedded in a message, and to warn you whenever a match is found.

Scan emails for tracking URLs

  By default, &kmail; will automatically check URLs embedded in &HTML; messages, and warn you if any of them appear to be trying to track you.

Attempt decryption of encrypted messages when viewing

  By default, &kmail; will automatically attempt to decrypt encrypted messages when you view them. If you prefer to do this manually, unselect this option.

Automatically import keys and certificate

  If checked, &kmail; automatically imports any attachments containing &openpgp; keys into your local keyring, and any attachments containing &smime; keys into your local key box.

  Verifying &smime; signatures always involves importing the contained certificates. This option does not affect that. It is also unrelated to &gpg;'s `auto-key-retrieve` feature, where &gpg; will try to import unknown keys from a key server.

### Message Disposition Notifications

Security MDNs
Security MDNs

The Security (Message Disposition Notifications) Tab

Message Disposition Notifications

  &mdn;s are a generalization of what is commonly called a read receipt. The message author requests a disposition notification to be sent, and the receiver's email program generates a reply from which the author can learn what happened to his message. Common disposition types include displayed (&ie;, read), deleted, and dispatched (&ie;, forwarded).

  The following options (listed as Send policy) are available to control when &kmail; sends &mdn;s.

  Ignore (recommended)

    Ignores any request for disposition notifications. No &mdn;s will ever be sent automatically.

  Ask

    Answers requests only after asking the user for permission. This way, you can send &mdn;s for selected messages while denying or ignoring them for others.

  Deny

    Always sends a denied notification. This is only slightly better than always sending &mdn;s. The author will still know that the message has been acted upon; he just cannot tell whether it was deleted or read, &etc;

  Always send

    Always sends the requested disposition notification. This means that the author of the message gets to know when the message was acted upon and, in addition, what happened to it (displayed, deleted, &etc;). This option is strongly discouraged, but since it makes sense where privacy is not a concern, &eg;, in customer relationship management, it has been made available.

  If you are unsure, experiment a while with Ask. Then, if you find &kmail;'s questions annoying, switch to Ignore.

  The following options (listed as Quote original message) are available to control how much of the original message &kmail; sends back with &mdn;s.

  Nothing

    No parts of the message other than the mandatory message-id and the original recipient are included in the &mdn; reply. This preserves enough information for the sender to uniquely identify the message for which this &mdn; was generated.

  Full message

    Attaches the complete message to the disposition notification. Usually, this is overkill. It does not add any valuable information that cannot be deduced from the message headers alone, but people sometimes insist on this, since it is much easier for humans to correlate the content of the message (and not just the headers) with what they sent earlier.

  Only headers

    Attaches only the headers to the disposition notification. This is usually enough to enable both humans (by subject) and computers (by message-id) to easily correlate &mdn; and original message.

  If unsure, leave this option set to the default value (nothing).

Do not send MDNs in response to encrypted messages

  This option suppresses the sending of &mdn;s if the message is encrypted (partially or in whole). This thwarts attempts to use &kmail;'s &mdn; feature as an oracle to deduce whether you were able to decrypt the message or not.

  Strictly speaking, this option is not needed, since &kmail; sends &mdn;s whether the message could be successfully decrypted, or not (the disposition notification request resides in the unencrypted part of the message); but it gives the security-conscious user a choice: either to send them when requested (option unchecked), or never (option checked).

  If unsure, leave this option checked (the default value).

### Composing

Security Composing
Security Composing

The Security (Composing) Tab

On this tab you can configure security-relevant options for composing messages.

Automatically sign messages

  If checked, the option in the composer will default to on.

  However, you can still switch it on and off on a per-message basis.

When encrypting emails, always also encrypt to the certificate of my own identity

  If checked, any message that is encrypted to the recipients will additionally be encrypted to yourself.

  If you uncheck this option, you may not be able to decrypt the messages written by yourself and encrypted to other people any more.

Store sent messages encrypted This option enables a mode of using mail encryption that is sometimes (misleadingly) called transport-only encryption. In this mode of operation, the message encryption is stripped off as soon as the message has reached its destination. The encryption lasts only while the message is on its way. &kmail; supports this mode half-heartedly, since such functionality should be placed at the mail server (MTA) and not at the mail client (MUA) level. Thus, future versions of &kmail; may drop support for this option.

  If checked, messages are stored in your sent-mail folder just as you sent them (&ie; if they were encrypted, they are also stored that way).

  If unchecked, messages will always be stored unencrypted in your sent-mail folder, even if they are sent encrypted.

Always show the encryption keys for approval

  If checked, every time you encrypt a message, a dialog will appear that presents you with the encryption keys that will be used for each recipient. You may then review the choice of keys, change them, and approve or cancel the encryption operation. We recommend to keep this option checked, since it makes the encryption process more transparent.

Automatically encrypt messages whenever possible

  Also called opportunistic encryption. If checked, &kmail; will try to match recipients to (&openpgp; or &smime;) keys even when you did not specifically request encryption. If usable keys are found for all recipients, &kmail; will ask whether or not you want to encrypt the message.

  It is highly recommended to turn this on, as it makes encryption really easy to use.

Never sign/encrypt when saving as draft

  If checked, &kmail; will not attempt to sign and/or encrypt messages that are merely saved to the drafts folder. This is more convenient, and does not result in a gross loss of security, provided the drafts folder is safe. &IMAP; users might want this option turned off, if their drafts folder is on the server.

### Miscellaneous

Security Miscellaneous Autocorrection
Security Miscellaneous

The Security (Miscellaneous) Tab

On this tab you can switch security-relevant warnings on and off.

Warn when trying to send unsigned messages

  If checked, &kmail; will show a warning if for whatever reason a message would be sent without being digitally signed.

Warn when trying to send unencrypted messages

  If checked, &kmail; will show a warning if for whatever reason a message would be sent without being encrypted.

  While it is common to sign all outgoing messages, encrypting them is not. So unless your company has a policy of never sending any unencrypted messages, it might be a good idea to keep this option switched off and rely on opportunistic encryption to alert you if you could send encrypted messages, but did not request it.

Warn if certificates/keys expire soon

  If checked, &kmail; will warn when an &smime; certificate or &openpgp; key is used which will expire soon.

  The period in which to warn before key/certificate expiration can then be configured separately for signing and encryption keys, as well as (in the case of &smime;), for end-user certificates, intermediate CA certificates and root certificates.

GnuPG Settings ...

  Click on this button to open an extensive dialog which configures the interactions between &kmail; and &gpg;, the Gnu Privacy Guard program. &gpg; is too complex to document here. For details you should refer to The &GNU; Privacy Handbook. Unless you're an encryption expert, you probably ought to accept the default settings here.

Re-Enable All "Don't Ask Again" Warnings

  Apart from the main warnings described above, there are many warning and informational messages, each containing an option not to show them again. If you would like to re-enable these messages after suppressing them, you can achieve that by pressing this button. This will re-enable all such warnings for &kmail;. It does not make much sense to allow more fine-grained selection of which warnings to show since you can just check the option to suppress them again the next time they appear.

### &smime; Validation

Security &smime; Validation
Security &smime; Validation

The Security (&smime; Validation) Tab

This tab contains selected entries from &gpgsm;'s dynamic back end configuration dialog. Please refer to the &gpgsm; manual for a more detailed description of these options.

Validate certificates using CRLs

  If checked, &smime; certificates are validated using Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs). This is the default configuration option.

Validate certificates online (OCSP)

  If this option is selected, &smime; certificates are validated using the Online Certificates Status Protocol (OCSP).

OCSP responder &URL;:

  Enter the address of the server for online validation of certificates. This &URL; usually starts with https://.

OCSP responder signature

  Select or change and enter the &smime; key to use.

Ignore service &URL; of certificates

  Check this option to skip online validation using the OCSP. This option requires dirmngr >= 0.9.0.

Do not check certificate policies

  By default, GnuPG uses the file `~/.gnupg/policies.txt` to check if a certificate policy is allowed. If this option is selected, such policies are not checked.

Never consult a CRLs

  If this option is checked, Certificate Revocation Lists are never used to validate &smime; certificates.

Fetch missing issuer certificates

  Check this option if you want the missing issuer certificates to be fetched when necessary. This applies to both validation methods, CRLs and OCSP.

Do not perform any &HTTP; requests

  Entirely disables the use of &HTTP; for &smime;.

Ignore &HTTP; CRL Distribution Point of certificates

  When looking for the location of a CRL, the to-be-tested certificate usually contains what are known as CRL Distribution Point (DP) entries, which are &URL;s describing the way to access the &URL;. The first found DP entry is used. With this option all entries using the &HTTP; scheme are ignored when looking for a suitable DP.

Use system &HTTP; proxy

  If this option is selected, the value of the &HTTP; proxy shown on the right (which comes from the environment variable `http_proxy`) will be used for any &HTTP; request.

Use this proxy for &HTTP; requests

  Enter the location of your &HTTP; Proxy here, which will be used for all &HTTP; requests relating to &smime;. The syntax is host:port, for example, myproxy.nowhere.com:3128.

Do not perform any LDAP requests

  Entirely disables the use of LDAP for &smime;.

Ignore LDAP CRL Distribution Point of certificates

  When looking for the location of a CRL, the to-be-tested certificate usually contains what are known as CRL Distribution Point (DP) entries, which are &URL;s describing the way to access the &URL;. The first found DP entry is used. With this option all entries using the LDAP scheme are ignored when looking for a suitable DP.

Primary host for LDAP requests

  Entering a LDAP server here will make all LDAP requests go to that server first. More precisely, this setting overrides any specified host and port part in a LDAP &URL; and will also be used if host and port have been omitted from the &URL;. Other LDAP servers will be used only if the connection to the proxy failed. The syntax is HOST or HOST:PORT. If PORT is omitted, port 389 (standard LDAP port) is used.

## Misc Page

### Folders

Miscellaneous Folders
Miscellaneous Folders

The Miscellaneous (Folders) Tab

Exclude important messages from expiry

  Enable this option if important messages should never be deleted automatically.

When trying to find unread messages

  This option controls what happens if you press one of the shortcuts to go to the next or previous unread message (&eg; Space). If you ask &kmail; to go to the next unread message although there is no unread message below the currently selected message then the following happens.

  - If Do not Loop is selected then nothing will happen.

  - If Loop in Current Folder is selected then &kmail; will search from the beginning of the current folder for an unread message. If none is found then nothing happens.

  - If Loop in All Folders is selected then &kmail; will first search in the current folder for another unread message. If none is found then &kmail; will search the next folder containing unread messages.

When entering a folder

  This option controls what happens when you open a folder.

  - If Jump to First Unread Message is selected, &kmail; will select the first message it finds that is marked as unread.

  - If Jump to Last Selected Message is selected, &kmail; will select the message that had been selected when the folder was most recently open.

  - If Jump to Newest Message is selected, &kmail; will select the newest message.

  - If Jump to Oldest Message is selected, &kmail; will select the oldest message.

Mark selected message as read after...

  When you select a new or unread message, &kmail; will change the message's status to read after this many seconds. If you disable this option, messages will retain their new or unread status until you adjust it manually (via the Folder menu).

Ask for action after dragging messages to another folder

  When you drag a message to a different folder, a small popup will ask you if you want to move or copy the message. If you disable this option, the message will be moved immediately, without a popup.

Open this folder on startup

  Here you can set the folder that should be selected when you start &kmail;. If you use only &IMAP; folders then you might want to set this to your &IMAP; inbox folder. If you do that, you can collapse the local folders in the folder list, and they will stay collapsed when &kmail; starts.

Empty the local trash folder on program exit

  The trash folder is cleared of messages when you quit &kmail; if this option is selected.

Allow deleting messages without confirmation

  &kmail;'s default behavior is to ask for confirmation when deleting a message. Select this option if you wish to skip that verification step. (Note that the Delete function is not accessible from &kmail;'s menus. But you can add a Delete button to the toolbar via the Settings Configure Toolbars ... dialog.)

### Invitations

Miscellaneous Invitation
Miscellaneous Invitation

The Miscellaneous (Invitation) Tab

Mangle From:/To: headers in replies to invitations

  Enable this option to make &Microsoft; Outlook understand your reply to an invitation.

Send invitations in the mail body

  Invitations are usually sent as attachments to a message. When this option is enabled, invitations are sent in the body of the message. This is necessary when sending invitations and replies to &Microsoft; Outlook.

Exchange compatible invitations naming

  &Microsoft; Outlook, when used in combination with a &Microsoft; Exchange server, has a problem understanding standards-compliant groupware e-mail. Enable this option to send groupware invitations in a format that &Microsoft; Exchange can decipher. The invitation will be sent as an attachment named `ical.ics`.

Delete invitation emails after the reply to them has been sent

  When this option is checked, invitations that have been replied to will be moved to the Trash folder as soon as the reply has been sent.

### Printing

Miscellaneous Printing
Miscellaneous Printing

The Miscellaneous (Printing) Tab

This dialog helps you fine tune the way the File Print function operates.

Print only selected text

  Enable this option to allow printing of only the selected portion of a message. The default value disables this feature, so the entire message is printed by default.

Respect expand/collapse quote marks settings

  This option is intended to interact with the Show expand/collapse quote marks feature of the Appearance/General tab, but it is not currently functioning correctly. In other words, there's a bug.

Print background color and images

  Like the preceding option, there is a bug here, so &kmail; always prints images, no matter how this option flag is set.

Always show encryption/signature details

  Enable this option to make &kmail; print encryption details for encrypted and/or digitally signed messages.

## Plugins Page

&kmail; contains a large number of special functions that may or may not be useful for particular users. You may select one or more of these special functions by choosing it / them on the "plugins" configuration page. Or, if you don't want or need a particular function, you can conserve time and storage space by deselecting the associated plugin module.

On many Linux distributions, most of these plugins are not included in the basic &kmail; package. To get full plugin functionality, be sure to install the package named "kdepim-addons" (or something similar).

You can get a rough idea of what a particular plugin does by simply highlighting the name of the plugin on the &kmail; configuration page. A brief description of that plugin's function will then appear on the right hand side of the dialog.

The various plugins currently available in &kmail; (2021) are listed below. Note that the set of "default" plugins is based on the openSUSE version of &kmail; (5.14.2) used as a reference for this edition of the documentation. The actual defaults on your system may be different; they're distro dependent.

Because new functionality is added from time to time, this list may grow longer as time passes. There are two general rules governing plugin structure you can count on even if the particular plugin you are confronting is not listed below.

1. If the plugin has configurable variables, you can open the configuration dialog for that plugin by clicking the button appearing next to the plugin's name.

2. Whenever a plugin is selected or deselected, &kmail; must be restarted before the desired change(s) can take effect.

### Akonadi and Check Before Send

Plugins Picture No. One
Plugins Picture No. One

Plugins: Akonadi & Check Before Send

Archive Mail Agent

  Select this option to enable automatic archiving. See the Archive Mail Agent documentation for detailed information. You may also wish to read the Archiving section of this handbook. This plugin is enabled by default.

Followup Reminder Agent

  Select this option to enable followup reminders. See the Followup Reminder Agent documentation for additional information. This plugin is enabled by default.

New Email Notifier

  Select this option to enable new email notifications. You may tailor the fields to be displayed in the "standard" notification message. You may also select audio signals (spoken text, pre-recorded sounds), create log file entries, &etc; This plugin is enabled by default.

Send Later Agent

  Select this option to enable delayed dispatching. See the Send Later Agent documentation for additional information. This plugin is enabled by default.

Unified Mailbox Agent

  Select this option to create a set of "unified" mailboxes. &kmail; will automatically create three of these, labeled Inbox, Drafts, and Sent. If you have defined both a Local Folders inbox and one or more &IMAP; inbox destinations, &kmail; will display all the various inbox files as one consolidated virtual Inbox folder. You may use the configuration dialog to create additional virtual mailboxes, tailoring each one as you see fit. This plugin is disabled by default.

Automatic Add Contacts

  Select this option to add new addresses to one of your address books whenever you send email to a new contact. Use the configuration dialog to associate address books with identities. This plugin is disabled by default.

Check Before Send

  Select this option to apply a few rules before actually sending a message. This plugin is enabled by default, and will automatically notify you when you are trying to send more than one copy of the message to the same person.

Confirm Address

  Select this option to enable address screening on outgoing messages. Use the configuration dialog to define a white list and/or a black list for each defined identity. This plugin is disabled by default.

### Composer / Editor

Plugins Picture No. Two
Plugins Picture No. Two

Composer & Editor

Open External Composer

  Select this option to force the composer to open an external text editor when it starts up. Use the configuration dialog for this plugin to specify the editor that will be called. This plugin is disabled by default.

Autocorrection

  Select this option to add the Tools Autocorrect Text > function to the composer. This plugin is disabled by default, and is apparently still under construction.

Change Case

  Select this option to add the Edit Change Case > function to the composer. This plugin is disabled by default.

Insert Email

  Select this option to add the Edit Insert Email... function to the composer. This lets you insert a selected email address from an address book into the body of your message with a simple point and click of the &LMB;. This plugin is disabled by default.

Insert Non Breaking Space

  Select this option to add the Edit Insert Non Breaking Space function to the composer. This plugin is disabled by default.

Insert Short URL

  Select this option to add a tiny bit of not quite functional code. This plugin is still under construction, and is also disabled by default.

Insert Special Character

  Select this option to add the Edit Insert Special Character... function to the composer. This plugin is enabled by default.

Quick Text

  Select this option to add the View Snippets feature to the composer. This plugin is enabled by default.

Share Text

  Select this option to add the Message Share Mail Text > function to the composer. Four options are offered: Nextcloud, Pastebin, Bluetooth, and Email (opens a second composer window). This plugin is disabled by default.

Zoom Text

  Select this option to add the Edit Zoom... > function to the composer. This plugin is disabled by default.

### Grammar Check / Header Styles

Plugins Picture No. Three
Plugins Picture No. Three

Grammar Checkers & Header Styles

French Grammar Checker

  Select this option to add the Tools Check Grammar (Grammalecte) option to the Composer window. This option is special, for the French language only.

Grammar Checker (Language Tool)

  Select this option to add the Tools Check Grammar (Language Tool) option to the Composer window. This is a multi-purpose tool, with support for checking grammar in many different languages.

The following six plugins permit you to decide which header styles can be selected from the View menu. See the description of various header views in the "Using &kmail;" chapter for more information.

Brief Header Style

  Select this option to enable the display of "Brief" headers. This plugin is enabled by default.

Default Grantlee Header Style

  Select this option to enable the display of "KMail 5.2" headers. This plugin is enabled by default.

Fancy Header Style

  Select this option to enable the display of "Fancy" headers. This plugin is enabled by default.

Grantlee Header Style

  Select this option to enable the display of "Cute" headers. This plugin is enabled by default.

Long Header Style

  Select this option to enable the display of "Long" headers. This plugin is disabled by default. (Long headers are similar to standard headers, but will display some less common header information, like "Reply-to", when such headers are present.)

Standards Header Style

  Select this option to enable the display of "Standard" headers. This plugin is disabled by default. (Standard headers are the same as Fancy headers, but without the shaded background.)

### Message Viewer / Miscellaneous

Plugins Picture No. Four
Plugins Picture No. Four

Message Viewer & Miscellaneous

The next six plugins all provide special functions that can only be invoked with a toolbar button. Use the Settings Configure Toolbars... dialog to add or remove the toolbar buttons associated with these functions after you select or disable one of these plugins.

Create Event

  Select this option to permit the creation of a calendar event while viewing a &kmail; message. This plugin is disabled by default.

Create Note

  Select this option to permit the creation of a &kontact; note while viewing a &kmail; message. This plugin is disabled by default.

Create Todo

  Select this option to permit the creation of a todo item in &korganizer; while viewing a &kmail; message. This plugin is disabled by default.

Expand URL

  Select this option to enable the "Expand URL" function. This plugin is enabled by default.

External Script

  Select this option to permit the invocation of an executable command from the toolbar. Use the associated configuration dialog to select the executable, and to give it a name. The name you choose can later be added to the toolbar as a button, so you may invoke the script at will. This plugin is disabled by default.

Translator

  The translator function is available in the composer by default. Use this plugin (via the toolbar) to make the translator available in the message preview window. This plugin is enabled by default.

The next four items are not really plugins; they are built-in &kmail; functions. Each one of these can be configured separately, by using the button appearing next to the function's name. No restart is needed to make these configuration variables take effect.

DKIM Checker

  This dialog allows you to control DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) processing. DKIM is a cryptographic protocol that can assure you a particular message originated from the internet domain it claims to be from. If the sender has set up DKIM properly and DKIM is enabled here, you will see a message "DKIM valid", and sometimes the name of the entity that signed the message, in the status bar at the bottom of the message preview window.

  If you enable this option, be sure to change the default value ("Nothing") in the spin box labeled "Save Record Key" to some other value. The DKIM Checker does not work correctly if that variable is set to "Nothing".

Expire Trash Folder

  Use this configuration dialog to set expiry criteria for your trash folder(s). See "Folder Properties" documentation for more information.

Folder Settings

  Use this configuration dialog to set custom folder properties for several different folders at once. You can select the folders to be modified from a tree view of all your folders on the left, and select properties to be set from the General, View, Templates, and Expiry tabs of the "Folder Properties" dialog.

Gravatar

  Use this configuration dialog to enable / disable Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) support.

### Tools

Plugins Picture No. Five
Plugins Picture No. Five

Tools & Webengine

Antispam

  Select this option to add the Anti-Spam Wizard to the Tools menu. This plugin is disabled by default. Note that once you have installed anti-spam software, this plugin may be safely disabled; the plugin is only needed for installing anti-spam software, not for running it.

Antivirus

  Select this option to add the Anti-Virus Wizard to the Tools menu. This plugin is disabled by default. Note that once you have installed anti-virus software, this plugin may be safely disabled; the plugin is only needed for installing anti-virus software, not for running it.

Expert Plugin

  Select this option to add the Message Show Message Structure Ctrl+Alt+D function in the message preview window. This plugin is enabled by default.

Log Activities

  Select this option to enable the Activity Log function, which is disabled by default. This plugin adds a new entry Log Activities to the Tools menu. Primarily for use by program developers -- the default log function does not provide much information (just a time stamp and "Ready", for most "events").

Adblock

  Select this option to add the Adblock Plus filters to &kmail;. If you choose to activate this plugin, be prepared to spend a good deal of time tweaking the configuration file to get the filters you really want. This plugin is disabled by default.

Do Not Track

  Select this option to force &kmail; to send a "Do Not Track" request to a remote server when an &HTML; message asks to download remote content. The effect of a "Do Not Track" request depends on the policy adopted by the web server receiving the request. Some sites honor it. Others don't.

  Advertisers have their eyes everywhere. &HTML;-encoded messages often include a 0x0- or 1x1-pixel "image" (aka a "tracking pixel") that is actually a tracking &URL; in disguise. When &kmail; fetches image data from a web server, it must utilize the &URL;s embedded in the message; the server can use information embedded in the &URL; to infer that you have opened the message, &etc;

  Sending a "Do Not Track" request may enhance your privacy slightly. But the only certain way to avoid tracking pixels is never to download remote images encoded in &HTML; messages. This plugin is enabled by default.

## Options without a user interface representation

Apart from the options presented in the configuration dialog, some options can only be set directly in the &kmail; configuration file or through KIOSK (&eg; Input into &konsole;). These so called hidden configuration options cannot be changed via the normal &kmail; Settings dialog; they must be made by modifying the configuration file using a text editor or the `kwriteconfig` program. The configuration file is to be written in the format of [Section Name] and the following lines are the variables and their settings. If you are manually editing the configuration file you will need to add the [Section Name] before adding variables. The `kwriteconfig` will add the section for you as long as you use the `--group` switch.

The &kmail; configuration file is called `kmail2rc` and can be found in your home directory. The location may vary according to your operating system or distribution, but can always be found by running the command ``kf5-config --path config --locate kmail2rc``. For the remainder of this section, assume that the configuration file is located in `/path/to/kmail2rc`.

Whenever changing these options, make sure to quit &kmail; first before editing the configuration file. Only restart &kmail; after you have made and saved the changes to the configuration file.

SendMDNsWithEmptySender

  Send Message Disposition Notifications with an empty sender string. Some servers might be configured to reject such messages, so if you are experiencing problems sending MDNs, make sure this option is set to false. To enable this feature, add to the [MDN] section:

  - Configuration file:

        SendMDNsWithEmptySender=true

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group MDN --key SendMDNsWithEmptySender true``

  The default setting of false strictly speaking violates Internet standards, but is set that way for practical reasons, to avoid servers rejecting MDNs that &kmail; generates because they think they are SPAM.

CloseDespiteSystemTray

  This option allows you to configure the application to close fully, even if there is a system tray icon configured, which would normally keep the application running. To enable the feature, add to the [General] section:

  - Configuration file:

        CloseDespiteSystemTray=true

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group General --key CloseDespiteSystemTray true``

disregardUmask

  In versions prior to 1.9, &kmail; saved all attachments to disk with permissions set to 600 — only readable or writable by the owner of the file. In response to user feedback, this was made configurable in &kmail; version 1.9, with the defaults changed to honor the umask set on the user account while saving files to disk. To enable this feature, add to the [General] section:

  - Configuration file:

        disregardUmask=true

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group General --key disregardUmask true``

CheckOutOfOfficeOnStartup

  With this option enabled, &kmail; will check on every startup if there is an active out-of-office reply configured, and show a warning if this is the case. To disable the feature, add to the [OutOfOffice] section:

  - Configuration file:

        CheckOutOfOfficeOnStartup=false

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group OutOfOffice --key CheckOutOfOfficeOnStartup false``

AllowOutOfOfficeSettings

  In case you don't want users to be able to upload their own out-of-office scripts to the server you may add to the [OutOfOffice] section:

  - Configuration file:

        AllowOutOfOfficeSettings=false

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group OutOfOffice --key AllowOutOfOfficeSettings false``

AllowOutOfOfficeUploadButNoSettings

  If you want to allow your users to upload their own out-of-office scripts but you do not want them to be able to change the domain to react to and the react-to-spam setting, you may add to the [OutOfOffice] section:

  - Configuration file:

        AllowOutOfOfficeUploadButNoSettings=true

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group OutOfOffice --key AllowOutOfOfficeUploadButNoSettings true``

OutOfOfficeDomain

  When editing vacation (out-of-office) scripts, the user may specify a domain to limit the sending of such replies to. Applying defaults to the out-of-office configuration dialog via the corresponding button will restore this domain, in case the user has changed it. To pre-load this setting with a default value, add to the [OutOfOffice] section:

  - Configuration file:

        OutOfOfficeDomain=myMailDomain.test

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group OutOfOffice --key OutOfOfficeDomain myMailDomain.test``

OutOfOfficeReactToSpam

  By default, out-of-office replies are not sent to messages marked as SPAM. To override this behavior, add to the [OutOfOffice] section:

  - Configuration file:

        OutOfOfficeReactToSpam=true

  - `kwriteconfig`

    &percnt; ``kwriteconfig` `--file /path/to/kmail2rc --group OutOfOffice --key OutOfOfficeReactToSpam true``