Updated 09-Jul-2026
Claws is a 25-year-old email client that is still getting updates. It started as a fork of Sylpheed, and is now using GTK3. The look is a bit old-fashioned, but it does have a reasonable dark mode, and is good at managing IMAP messages and folders.
Claws Mail Features
- Great dark mode (looking at you Kmail)
- Easy to configure multiple IMAP mailboxes
- A joy to view HTML mail in text (still with working URLs)
- Can drag messages from one IMAP mailbox to a different IMAP mailbox
- Kmail could do this but Geary could not
- Can configure toolbars extensively
- For example creating an archive button
- Up-to-date apt repositories
sudo apt install claws-mail
Claws Mail Antifeatures
- No Universal Inbox concept
- Have a bit of configuring to do to get everything working (but quite extensible)
- No easy way to toggle between text and html email formats.
- Weak calendar integration (no viewing as a calendar widget, though appointments are supported)
Claws plugins
The Claws Plugins are in a variety of places:
sudo apt install claws-mail-plugins -t trixie-backportsgets you bogofilter, php, mime, and spamassassin pluginssudo apt install claws-mail-extra-plugins -t trixie-backportsgets you a bunch if not the vast majority of plugins- bsfilter, claws-mail-managesieve, clamav, claws-mail-multi-notifier, clamav-base, claws-mail-newmail-plugin, clamav-freshclam, claws-mail-pdf-viewer, claws-mail-acpi-notifier, claws-mail-perl-filter, claws-mail-address-keeper, claws-mail-python-plugin, claws-mail-archiver-plugin, claws-mail-spam-report, claws-mail-attach-remover, claws-mail-tnef-parser, claws-mail-bsfilter-plugin, claws-mail-vcalendar-plugin, claws-mail-clamd-plugin, dillo, claws-mail-dillo-viewer, libclamav12, claws-mail-fancy-plugin, libfltk1.3t64, claws-mail-fetchinfo-plugin, libpython3-all-dev, claws-mail-keyword-warner, python3-all, claws-mail-litehtml-viewer, python3-all-dev, claws-mail-mailmbox-plugin
- Most of the other plugins are listed here
- But they are mostly found in Debian apt repositories listed here. Note: use
-t trixie-backportsin getting these installed or some weird stuff happens.
- But they are mostly found in Debian apt repositories listed here. Note: use
Claws mail themes
sudo apt install claws-mail-themes
Additional resources
- Claws Mail user manual is quite detailed
- Claws Mail tools mainly perl scripts that do cool things
- Claws Mail documentation not the same as the user manual above