Sylpheed

---

title: "Sylpheed" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["free-software-programmed-in-c", "email-clients-that-use-gtk", "gnome-applications", "free-email-software", "email-client-software-for-linux", "windows-email-clients", "macos-email-clients", "usenet-clients", "software-using-the-gnu-general-public-license"] description: "Open-source email and news software" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylpheed" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Open-source email and news software ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox Software"]

Field	Value
name	Sylpheed
logo	Sylpheed.png
logo size	48px
screenshot	Sylpheed zen.jpg
screenshot size	250px
caption	Sylpheed 2.2.7 used together with Xfce Mailwatch plugin
developer	Yamamoto Hiroyuki
released	0.1.0alpha ()
latest release version
latest release date
latest preview version
latest preview date
programming language	C, GTK+
operating system	BSD, Linux, macOS, Unix, Windows, AmigaOS
language	English; Japanese
genre	E-mail client, news client
license	Sylpheed GPL-2.0-or-later
LibSylph LGPL-2.1-or-later
website
::

::callout[type=note] the e-mail client ::

| name = Sylpheed | logo = Sylpheed.png | logo size = 48px | screenshot = Sylpheed zen.jpg | screenshot size = 250px | caption = Sylpheed 2.2.7 used together with Xfce Mailwatch plugin | developer = Yamamoto Hiroyuki | released = 0.1.0alpha () | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | programming language = C, GTK+ | operating system = BSD, Linux, macOS, Unix, Windows, AmigaOS | language = English; Japanese | genre = E-mail client, news client | license = Sylpheed GPL-2.0-or-later LibSylph LGPL-2.1-or-later | website = Sylpheed is an open-source e-mail client and news client licensed under GNU GPL-2.0-or-later with the library part LibSylph under GNU LGPL-2.1-or-later. It provides easy configuration and an abundance of features. It stores mail in the MH Message Handling System. Sylpheed runs on Unix-like systems such as Linux or BSD, and it is also usable on Windows. It uses GTK+.

In 2005, Sylpheed was forked to create Sylpheed-Claws, now known as Claws Mail. As of 2020, both projects continue to be developed independently.

Sylpheed is the default mail client in Lubuntu, Damn Small Linux and some flavours of Puppy Linux.

Features

Spam filtering

Sylpheed provides support for spam filtering using either bogofilter or bsfilter, at the user's choice. Bsfilter is shipped with the Windows version of Sylpheed.

Plug-ins

Sylpheed supports the development of plug-ins. As of February 2015, Sylpheed's website notes an attachment-tool plug-in, an automatic mail forwarding plug-in, and a plug-in for determining whether or not attachments are password-protected.

Limitations

Sylpheed is unable to send HTML mail. This is intentional, since the developers consider HTML mail to be harmful. It is still possible to receive HTML mail using Sylpheed.

Password

The password is stored in plaintext in the Sylpheed configuration file, which by default is only readable by "owner" and not by "group" nor "other". A feature called "master password" prevents Sylpheed from holding plaintext passwords, but does not protect stored messages from other local users with administrator privilege.

Encryption

Sylpheed includes natively PGP Sign and PGP Encrypt options in the compose window (which requires however an encryption tool based on PGP already installed on the computer). This function is simple to handle yet not intuitive to set up.

References

References

1. "The Sylpheed Email Client [LWN.net]".
2. [https://sourceforge.net/p/claws-mail/news/2005/01/sylpheed-claws-100-unleashed/ "Sylpheed-Claws 1.0.0 unleashed!!"], 18 January 2005.
3. [http://puppylinux.org/wikka/sylpheed "http://puppylinux.org/wikka/sylpheed"] {{Webarchive. link. (2015-10-09 , Retrieved 19 April 2015)
4. [https://sylpheeddoc.sourceforge.net/en/faq/sylpheed-faq-1.html "Chapter 1. Sylpheed FAQ - General Information"]
5. [http://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/plugin.html "Sylpheed Plug-ins"]
6. "Sylpheed User's Manual: Sylpheed configuration".
7. "Feature #8: Master password - Sylpheed".
8. "4 lightweight email alternatives to Thunderbird".
9. "Choosing an email reader for encryption » Linux Magazine".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::