KMail/FAQs Hints and Tips: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 07:44, 28 September 2009

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Is my problem already known?

Symptom: You have a problem with kde-pim and would like to know whether others have reported and solved the problem. You wonder how to read the archives of the kde-pim mailing list.

Solution: This is a good habit to cultivate. Try the MARC archives at http://lists.kde.org/?l=kdepim-users&r=1&w=2

Configuration

Store sent mails in a special folder

You want to store mails in a special folder. Maybe you are using an IMAP server and want to store your mails on the server, not in the client.

Solution: In kontact, choose "Settings -> Configure KMail -> Identities -> (Choose an identity) -> Modify -> Advanced -> Sent-mail-folder"

Store trash mails in a special folder

You want to store mails in a special folder. Maybe you are using an IMAP server and want to store your mails on the server, not in the client.

Solution: In kontact, choose "Settings -> Configure KMail -> Accounts -> Receiving -> (Choose an account) -> Modify -> Advanced -> Trash folder"

Store encrypted mails as unencrypted

Symptom: You exchange encrypted mail with a friend, but would like to store it unencrypted, once you have opened the message.

Solution: To store emails that have been decrypted once in unencrypted format henceforth, add this to your kmailrc configuration file, in the [Reader] section:

store-displayed-messages-unencrypted=true

This may only work with SMIME but implementation for OpenPgP is being worked on.

Spam filtering on an IMAP server

Symptom: You intend moving on to reading your mail from an IMAP server, and wonder how filtering and spam handling will occur?

Solution The machine that already has your mail can become your imap server. You will need to configure a server application. Dovecot is one such, and the guidance on the project web pages make it easy to set up. That still leaves you with the problem of filtering, as it makes sense to do it on the server (when you point kmail at the server you will see the folders that you have created). Again there are options, but one of the best known is procmail. Again there is plenty of information on the Internet on how to set this up. You give it a set of 'recipes' - here's an example:

:0
* (^To|^CC|^List-ID): .*kde-linux
${MAILDIR}.INBOX.KDE-Lists.kde-users/

If you have maildir folders, each recipe must end with a '/'. If your folders are mbox, just omit the '/'

If you have been using bogofilter with kmail you will already have a wordlist. This can be used at server level, too, so you won't have to start training from scratch. The trick is to set this before the procmail recipes:

:0fw
| bogofilter -e -p

:0e
{ EXITCODE=75 HOST }

:0:
* ^X-Bogosity: Spam, tests=bogofilter
${MAILDIR}.INBOX.a-Spam/

:0e
{ EXITCODE=75 HOST }

:0:
* ^X-Bogosity: Unsure, tests=bogofilter
${MAILDIR}.INBOX.a-Unsure/

:0e
{ EXITCODE=75 HOST }

Note that it is going to use a mailbox for spam and one for unsure - I add a 'a-' to the name to ensure that they are easily seen, at the top of the list.

Finally, to improve performance, run the following command occasionally on saved spam and Unsures:

/usr/share/bogofilter/contrib/trainbogo.sh -c -H /home/user/Maildir /.INBOX.bogotrain_ham/cur/ -S /home/user/Maildir/.INBOX.bogotrain_spam/cur/

(don't forget to check the path.)

This is not a complete guide to setting up a server, but notes on how to set up the server to work as you expect in KMail.

Get more screen space in KMail

Symptom: You are using KMail under KDE 4.2 or later on a netbook, and find that the new Aggregation display leaves you little screen space

Solution: You now have a new set of icons next to the quick search bar. You can use these to choose a different theme and a different aggregation. If you want to change the look so that a mail uses a single row instead of two rows, go to - the tooltip says "Select View Appearance (Theme)" - and change the theme to Classic. If you want to disable grouping by date, change the aggregation to Standard Mailing List. Now your KMail will look exactly like it did in earlier versions.

Get more screen space in KMail - reduce font size

Symptom: You still lack screen space, and would prefer more visible lines at the expense of font size, but your attempts only partially work.

Solution: In Settings > Configure KMail > Appearance > Fonts you can select Custom Font and change the setting for each component in the list. This is when you discover that your folder list and the message bodies do use the fonts you want, but the message list still has too large a font.

Now you have to look at that set of new icons at the top right, close to the search box, for - the tooltip says "Select View Appearance (Theme)". Choose Configure, then Appearance tab. There is a list of "Content Items", and below that a mockup of column headers. Each one of those column headers needs to be clicked on, and your new Custom font set. At the end of this the message list will display in the same font as the rest of your layout.

Un-configure KMail folder tool tips

Symptom: You are using KMail under KDE 4.2 on a netbook, and find that the tooltips over folders hide too many folder names

Solution: Right-clicking on the header of the Folder List now brings up several more configuration options. One section is headed 'Display Tooltips', and the choices are Always, When Text Obscured, Never. 'When Text Obscured' is handy for folders that have long names, so that only part of the name is displayed. Folders where you can see the full name won't pop up the tooltip.

Un-configure KMail message list tool tips

In KMail, --> Settings --> Configure KMail --> Appearance -->Message List - uncheck General --> "Display tooltips for messages and group headers"

Remove Alternate Line colourings

In System Settings->Appearance->Colors->Colors. for each color set except Common Colors (which doesn't have it), change the Alternate Background to be the same as the Normal Background.

Migration

Transfer mail and settings to another computer (or another user account on the same machine)

Solution: The messages are typically in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/. For very old installations of KMail, the messages can also be in ~/Mail. Note that KMail uses hidden sub-directories inside that directory, so you need to make sure to copy hidden directories as well.

For settings you will need to copy the following files:

~/.kde/share/config/kmailrc,
~/.kde/share/config/mailtransports, (since KDE 4.0)
~/.kde/share/config/emaildefaults and
~/.kde/share/config/emailidentities .

Your address book is usually stored in ~/.kde/share/apps/kabc/. Calendar data is in ~/.kde/share/apps/korganizer

Be aware that some distributions use ~/.kde4 instead of ~/.kde/ for their KDE configuration data.

If you plan to use an USB stick as transport medium for your data, be sure to read section 'Cannot copy mail to a USB stick' below.

Problem: Cannot copy mail to a USB stick

Symptom: You are setting up a new computer and want to transfer all your mail. You decide to copy everything to a usb stick. The job starts, then you start to get failure message, 'Unable to copy ............Invalid argument'.

Solution: Your usb stick is (V)FAT formatted, and thus can't handle maildir folder names (nor can it handle permissions, which can cause many other problems). You have two choices. Either format your usb stick as ext2 (in which case you should be aware it can't be read on windows OSes without installing additional software there) or create a tar file of all your mail, copy that to the stick and extract it to your new host.

Troubleshooting

Problem: You are losing mail

Symptom (1): You are losing mail. One message in your Inbox had an empty subject line and the date 1st January 1970. When you clicked on it, it was empty. When you clicked on the next message that changes to the same state.

Solution to (1): This happens where there is corruption in your index files. First thing then, do not click on any more messages.

With the KMail 1.10 shipped with KDE 4.1 or newer, right click on the folder and select Rebuild Index (you can do the same from the Folder menu).
With earlier KMail versions the process is slightly more complicated. Close KMail. In Dolphin, navigate to where your mail is stored (typically in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/) and look for index files associated with the affected mailbox. There will be two or three, and be easy to spot. Delete them. They will be recreated when you re-start KMail. You will have lost the mails that had disappeared, but the rest of the mail should be visible again.

You have empty 'ghost-mails' in your inbox (or other folder)

Symptom: For some reason, certain messages aren't accessible in KMail. They show up in the message list window but selecting them there results in a blank message window. I can't open them or reply to them, etc.

Solution: This problem ist most likely due to corrupted index files, see issue 'You are loosing mail' above. So just follow the advice given there.

Problem: Wrong address autocompletion

Problem: You sent an email to to a friend and mis-typed his address. Now that address keeps popping up as a suggestion, everytime you try to send to the correct address. You can't find it in your addressbook.

Solution: Recent addresses are actually stored in /.kde/share/config/kmailrc, but rather than risk making a mistake in a manual edit, go to KMail's Settings > Configure KMail > Composer and you will see a button "Edit Recent Addresses"

Problem: Cannot follow a link in a mail

Symptom: You have set Firefox as your default browser, but when you click a URL in KMail it loads a local tmp version of the page with broken relative links.

Solution: You should add %u or %U to the Firefox executable in the settings. If that is not present KDE assumes that the application is not capable of handling remote urls (http) and hence creates a local copy first.

Problem: You get an authentication error message

Authentication support is not compiled into kio_smtp. The message will stay in the 'outbox' folder until you either fix the problem (e.g. a broken address) or remove the message from the 'outbox' folder.

Solution: Install the sasl-devel-package and recompile kdepimlibs. E.g. for SUSE the package is named cyrus-sasl-devel and you install it with the command

yast -i cyrus-sasl-devel

When running cmake to compile kdepimlibs, you will see:

-- The following external packages were located on your system.
-- This installation will have the extra features provided by these packages.
[...]
+ cyrus-sasl

Problem: You can't find your Distribution Lists

Solution: See KAddressBook

Error: Could Not Determine Resource Status

Symptom: When fetching mail, you get an error message reading like:

Error while getting folder information.
Could Not Determine Resource Status
An attempt to determine information about the status of the resource 
Unable to get information about folder INBOX.customflags.
The server replied: Mailbox does not exist, or must be subscribed to.,
such as the resource name, type, size, etc., was unsuccessful.
Technical reason: Could Not Stat Resource

Reason: You are using Courier IMAP as your mail server.

Solution: If you are your own mail server administrator, set up a different mail service, for example cyrus. Here is a description how to do it.

KMail with other desktops or applications

Problem: KMail does not start up.

Symptom: You want to start kmail from a minimal desktop environment like fvwm2. It does not start.

Reason: You are missing the dbus functionality.

Solution: Start kmail using dbus-launch like this:

dbus-launch kmail

Tell Firefox to use KMail for mailto: addresses

Solution: In the Firefox address bar, type about:config Right-click anywhere in the window and select New|String in the first dialogue field. Type

networkprotocol-handler.app.mailto

and then

kmailservice

Close firefox

Set Firefox as your default browser

Symptom: You want to click on a link in KMail and have it opened in Firefox. At the moment, another browser is used. You want to change this.

Solution: This solution will affect all of KDE, not just KMail. Start systemsettings -> Default Applications -> Web Browser -> Open http and https URLs in the following browser -> firefox.

If you are an administrator and want to set this setting automatically for your users, it is

for SUSE Linux

in your user directory in .kde4/share/config/kdeglobals the line

BrowserApplication[$e]=!firefox

for all other Linux

in your user directory in .kde/share/config/kdeglobals the line

BrowserApplication[$e]=!firefox

Control your Roaming profile's connection

Symptom: You set up a Roaming profile to access your home server while you are on the road, but it keeps trying to connect even when you are at home. Auto-connection is disabled in the setup screens.

Solution: Settings -> Configure KMail -> Accounts -> Receiving (tab)-> "select the account to exclude"-> Modify->General (tab), uncheck "Include in manual mail check". This will exclude the profile when you hit the download icon, but the profile will still be available from the drop-down list, making it easy to get your mail while away from home.