Use Claws mail

DigitalBox
Ports
March 11, 2025

Claws mail is a nice email client available on Haiku, so why not installing it ?

We will review in this article how to setup the software to send and receive emails from two providers :)

If you remember the last article named Configuring e-mail, being able to send and receive emails from Haiku was not very conclusive.

This time the situation is better and below is how to get it working.

Installation

Open HaikuDepot and search for "claw" in the "All packages" :

Select the "Claws mail" entry and proceed with the installation.

Gmail

Before opening Claws email, let's do a quick setup for Gmail.

In some situations, you need to define an application password for your Gmail account.

It's the case if you need to access your email account from Haiku.

For that go to the URL: https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords

Then define your application password.

Now open a Terminal and type the below to send a testing email :

curl --url "smtps://smtp.gmail.com:465" \
     --ssl-reqd \
     --mail-from "youraccount@gmail.com" \
     --mail-rcpt "user@free.fr" \
     --upload-file - \
     --user "youraccount@gmail.com:app_pass" <<EOF
From: youraccount@gmail.com
To: user@free.fr
Subject: Sending email from Haiku with Gmail account

This is a testing email from Haiku with curl.
EOF

Replace the below :

youraccount@gmail : by your Gmail account
app_pass : your Gmail application password defined earlier
user@free.fr : the contact your would like to send your testing email to

Once done, if your email was successfully sent, then you can proceed to the configuration of Claws mail :)

First setup

Open Claws mail.

The current version available on Haiku is the 4.3.0 one.

The welcome screen below will be displayed :

You need to define your main email account.

Enter your Gmail email address :

Then indicate for the receiving mail :

Server type : IMAP
Server adress : imap.gmail.com
Username : your Gmail address
Tick the TLS option

For the receiving mail :

SMTP server : smtp.gmail.com:587
Tick Use Authentication
Tick Use TLS
Tick Use STARTTLS

Click on Next.

Confirm the below certificate message :

Verify setup

If everything runs smoothly, the setup of your account is now completed.

If you open via the Tracker the "/boot/home/mail" folder, you should see the below:

Now click on the "Get Mail" button under Claws mail :

The emails available on the IMAP server will be scanned as below :

It should take a few minutes before completion.

In order to verify the Gmail setup, go to the "Configuration>Edit accounts" menu :

In the Basic section, you should have the below information :

Full name : your full name
Mail address : your email
Protocol : IMAP
Server for receiving : imap.gmail.com
SMTP server (send) : smtp.gmail.com

In the Receive section, the default settings should apply below :

In the Send section, the default settings should apply also :

In the TLS section, verify that :

IMAP : Use TLS is selected
Send (SMTP) : Use STARTTLS is selected

Finally, in the Advanced section :

SMTP port : 587

Using Claws mail

If you go into the Inbox of your Gmail account, you should see all your emails visible :

Let's send a simple email.

For that click on the Compose icon :

Indicate the address where the email must be sent to, the subject and the content of your message :

Then click on Send.

The below popup will be displayed :

Once done, if you go to the Sent folder, your message should be visible.

And if you go to the "/boot/home/mail/claws-mail/imapcache" folder, you will have access to all your sent emails :

Please note that HTML emails are displayed like text emails.

Indeed the litehtml viewer plugin is not yet officially available on Haiku.

If you would like to discover which plugins are available, go to the "Configuration> Plugins" menu:

Then click on "Load" :

The folder where the plugins are available is displayed by default.

And each plugin is accessible via a shared library :

Free account

Let's setup a second mail account like Free.

In order to verify your account is recognized under Haiku, type the below command in a Terminal to send a testing email :

curl --url "smtps://smtp.free.fr:465" \
     --ssl-reqd \
     --mail-from "youraccount@free.fr" \
     --mail-rcpt "user@gmail.com" \
     --upload-file - \
     --user "youraccount:pass" <<EOF
From: youraccount@free.fr
To: user@gmail.com
Subject: Sending email from Haiku with Free account

This is a testing email from Haiku with curl.
EOF

Replace the below :