Development [LWN.net]

The Sylpheed Email Client

Sylpheed is a GTK+ based lightweight email client that is authored by Hiroyuki Yamamoto. According to the project FAQ, Sylpheed aims to be fast, graceful, intuitive, easy to configure, reliable and full of features. The name comes from the wind spirits, the Sylphs, representing the lightweight nature of the application.

Sylpheed features include:

An easy to use intuitive user interface.
Works with a minimal amount of configuration.
Supports Mutt-style MIME type checking.
Supports the following protocols: POP3, IMAP4 rev 1, SMTP.
Supports NNTP for News reading.
Includes GPG encryption with the SSL/TLSv1 protocol.
Works with IPv6 networking.
Includes spam filtering capabilities via bogofilter.
Uses the MH (1 file per message) mail file format.
Is designed to work with massively populated mail folders.
Features name completion using the built-in address book.
Supports threaded mail reading for grouping by common topics.
Has the ability to compose emails using an external editor.
Can execute external commands.
Supports a wide variety of character encodings.
Has high-level Japanese language processing capabilities.
Features translations for 29 languages.

The User's Manual explains the operation of the software in more detail. A few obligatory screen shots show Sylpheed in action.

Version 2.0.0 of Sylpheed was announced this week, it features a switch to GTK2, usability improvements, inline viewing of attached images, and more.

The software was a breeze to configure, build, and install on a Fedora Core 3 system. Pre-compiled packages are available for several popular Linux distributions. Operation was simple and intuitive, as advertised. Your author is seriously considering a switch from the old reliable (and somewhat clunky by today's standards) exmh mail client to Sylpheed.

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