E-mail and News
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Introduction
Opera's news and e-mail client is designed for speed, elegance, and user friendliness.
All messages you receive are automatically indexed and sorted based on sender, contents, and the type of message. They are kept in a single database and can therefore appear in multiple views without copying and moving. There is no need to create folders, and no need to sort messages manually.
Importing messages
Follow this procedure to import messages, contact information, and settings from other e-mail clients:
- Select .
- Click "New" and select "Import e-mail".
- Select which e-mail client to import from.
- If Opera has not located the correct folder, click "Choose" to select the folder the messages are located in.
- Select which account to import into; choose "New" to import to a fresh account.
- Select whether to import settings, contacts, messages, or a combination.
- Click "Import" to start importing.
Imported messages are treated as follows:
- Your old folder tree is put under "Filters" in the Mail panel.
- Messages in your old Outbox, Sent, Drafts, and Trash folders are put in the corresponding views.
- All old incoming messages (from your inbox and folder tree) will appear in the Received view.
Setting up a new account
Follow this procedure to set up a new account without importing old messages:
- Select .
- Click "New" and select the type of e-mail account you want (most likely POP if you are unsure).
- Enter your name, e-mail address, and optionally an organization you belong to.
- Enter your user (log-in) name and password (given to you by your service provider).
- Enter mail server information from your service provider.
- Click "Finish" to create the account.
Messages that are not already on your computer will then be downloaded from the mail server.
Tip: See Opera's on-line article for information about using the e-mail client with your Premium Opera Web Mail account.
Writing messages
- Click "Compose" or press Ctrl+E to compose a new message.
- Auto-completion of e-mail addresses will be offered for contacts.
- If you wish to add files to the message, click "Attach".
- Check the spelling of your message by right-clicking and selecting "Check spelling", or by clicking the "Check spelling" button on the e-mail toolbar. Learn more about the spelling checker.
- Save the message as a draft by clicking "Save" if you wish to continue later.
- Send the message by clicking the "Send" button.
- Double-click a message in the Drafts view to continue editing a draft.
- Double-click a message in the Sent view to edit and resend an old message.
Tip: The font in the compose window can be changed in the fonts preferences.
Reading messages
By default, new messages will be downloaded to your computer at regular intervals, but you may also choose to do this manually, for example if you are using a dial-up connection. Find your "Unread" view in the Mail panel or menu to go through new messages.
Message view explained
The message view is divided into four parts:
- Toolbar with buttons for common actions
- Field that lists messages
- Field that displays the contents of the currently selected message
- Field where you can type and send a quick reply to the currently selected message
Click on the columns to sort listed messages according to the corresponding criteria.
- The left-most column displays a symbol for each message:
Symbol Meaning Star New messages are marked as unread Arrow pointing up The message has been sent (outgoing messages) Arrow pointing left You have replied to the message Arrow pointing right You have forwarded the message - The "Subject" column displays a triangle if the message belongs to a thread (click to expand), and an envelope to indicate an e-mail message.
- The paper-clip column displays an icon for messages that contain file attachments.
Messages that appear in blue in the message list have not been seen (selected by cursor) yet. Messages in bold have not been marked as read yet.
Smileys
Opera can present textual emoticons in the form of graphical smileys in e-mail and news messages. This is toggled from the e-mail toolbar in Chat help.
. For an overview of available smileys, please see theQuick find
To quickly search all the messages in your current view for a specific term or phrase, use the "Quick find" field in the e-mail toolbar. The messages will be sorted as you type.
Message list context menu
Right-click a message for multiple choices:
Reply | Answer selected message |
---|---|
Reply all | Answer selected message and include all recipients |
Forward | Pass selected message to a third party, with you as the sender in the "From" field |
Redirect | Send selected message to a third party, keeping original sender in the "From" field |
Mark » | Mark selected messages as read, unread, spam, and so forth |
Label as » | Mark selected messages as Important, Funny, and so forth |
Show in » | Make selected messages available in other views |
Go to » | Navigate messages |
Remove from view | Hide selected messages from active view (move to clipboard) |
Copy | Mark selected messages (copy to clipboard), enabling pasting to other views |
Paste | Show copied (clipboard) messages in active view |
Delete | Send selected messages to Trash view |
Cancel post | Request all news servers to delete posting (use in Sent view) |
Edit | Continue editing selected outgoing message |
Add contact | Recognize senders of selected messages as contacts |
Click the View button in the e-mail toolbar for multiple choices on how to display messages:
From | Show only messages a certain contact has sent to you (only in Contacts views) |
---|---|
To | Show only messages you have sent to a certain contact (only in Contacts views) |
To and from | Show all messages you have sent to and received from a contact (only in Contacts view) |
Flat | Show related messages sorted separately (not in Contacts view) |
Threaded | Show related messages sorted in threads |
Show » | Show certain types of messages |
Period » | Decide how far back in time to look at messages |
Display » | Decide how to display the message body |
Mark as read » | Mark message as read manually or automatically |
Show quick reply | Enable the "quick reply" function |
If you use quick reply to answer a message, Opera will remove text that has been quoted more than twice.
Tip: You can specify quote levels to strip in "accounts.ini". The replacement text can be edited in "english.lng".
Warning: HTML messages may contain markup that fetches data from the Internet. This poses a security risk and is therefore disabled by default.
Organizing messages
The mail panel displays a tree of views that organize your messages. Note the following details about the message tree:
- Click the root elements (for example "All messages" and "Filters") to show the underlying views
- Left-click a view to show the messages it contains
- Bold views contain unread messages
- You can navigate the tree with the cursor keys (more about keyboard navigation).
Right-click a view for multiple choices:
Read mail | Display message list for selected view |
---|---|
Compose | Write a new message |
Check mail | Download new messages to your computer |
Mark all as read | Hide all messages (in selected view) from Unread view |
Empty spam | Move all spam messages to Trash |
Empty trash | Permanently remove deleted messages from Trash view |
New filter | Create new filter |
Delete | Delete selected view and all sub-views |
Newsgroups | Open "Subscribe newsgroups" dialog |
Newsfeeds | Open "Subscribe to RSS newsfeeds" dialog |
IMAP folders | Open "Subscribe IMAP folders" dialog |
Show messages from » | Hide or show messages from certain accounts |
Export | Export selected messages in the standard UNIX mailbox format (MBS) |
Properties.. | Edit view properties |
Note: Mailing lists are identified by looking for standard mailing list headers. See IETF RFC 2919 for specifications.
Filtering
The spam filter
The spam view separates advertisements and unwanted messages from messages in other views. By default, Opera's internal spam filter is set to medium strength, and it will analyze messages that are added to and removed from it to continually improve its automated sorting.
The internal spam filter examines messages for suspicious content, missing sender address, and so forth. If too many questionable matters are found, the message is considered spam. You can change the spam filter settings by right-clicking on "Spam" in the panel and selecting "Properties" from its context menu.
Building your own tree of filters
If you wish to organize your messages beyond what is done automatically, you can create your own message filters to resemble traditional message folders. Top-level filters are created by right-clicking anywhere inside the mail panel and selecting "New filter".
You can make messages appear in your filters manually, by right-clicking a message in the message view, and selecting a filter under "Show in", or automatically, by setting up filters with specific rules for message sorting. Each message can appear in as many views as you like.
To edit the name of a filter or the rules associated with it, select it in the panel and press Alt+Enter.
The following filter actions are available:
- Show filtered messages only in the view that the filter applies for.
- Mark filtered messages as read.
- Reuse rules from parent filter, then add more if you want to.
- Filter all your messages or messages received after you activated the filter.
Finding messages
As the number of messages on your computer grows, it becomes necessary to quickly retrieve particular messages. Opera has multiple search options for messages:
- Type your search term into the "Start search" field in the mail panel for a quick full-text search of all messages.
- Use the "Quick find" field available in the toolbar of each message view to narrow the selection of messages as you type.
- Go to to perform a specified full-text search of some or all messages.
Managing accounts
You can choose different settings for each of your accounts in
.General
- The account name is only used within Opera, not in your messages.
- Account categories lets you select between groups of accounts, for example only display your three work accounts or your two home accounts.
- Your name and e-mail address appear in outgoing messages, for example Nice Person <someone@example.org>.
- Outgoing messages can indicate an organization you belong to (optional).
- Outgoing messages can indicate an alternate address people should send replies to (optional).
- You can have all messages sent from the account CC'ed or BCC'ed to a particular e-mail address (optional).
Servers
Enter the e-mail or news account information you have received from your service provider. Contact your service provider if you are missing information.
Tip: To protect your e-mail and news passwords, enter a security password in Opera's security preferences.
Incoming
- Leaving messages on a server makes it possible to retrieve the messages again from another computer.
- If you read messages from multiple computers, they can be marked automatically if you have already downloaded (read) them from another computer.
- You can choose whether to download message bodies while checking messages or when reading each individual message.
- You can choose how often to check for new messages automatically and which accounts to include.
- You can decide which accounts to include when you check for new messages manually.
- You can have a sound played when you get new messages.
Outgoing
- International users may need to specify a character set for their language.
- Enable wrapping to make text fit standard width (76 characters).
- Enable queueing to have messages sent in batches when you click the "Send" button (useful if you have a dial-up connection).
- When sending or replying to a message, you can have all recipients automatically added to your contact list.
- Specify a signature that will appear at the bottom of all messages you send.
IMAP
About IMAP
IMAP organizes your e-mail messages on the mail server. Regardless of where you are when you look at your e-mail, you will see the same messages organized the same way, even if you use different computers.
Caution: Setting up an e-mail account to use both POP and IMAP simultaneously is likely to cause problems. Therefore, use either POP or IMAP for each account.
Setting up an IMAP account
Before attempting to set up an IMAP account, make sure the e-mail service you are using supports it. Then follow the procedure for POP and select IMAP instead of POP when asked.
Using IMAP
When your IMAP folder has been set up, and all messages are downloaded to your computer, your IMAP folder tree appears in the "Mail" panel under "Mail for...".
The INBOX folder is the default folder for incoming messages and cannot be deleted. Click it to read your messages. Reading and sending messages over IMAP is similar to working with POP.
Maintaining IMAP folders
Go to
to customize your IMAP folder tree. Click the checkboxes to select which IMAP folders you want to access from your computer.Note that when you delete an IMAP folder from the mail server, all messages in that folder will be lost.
To move a message from one IMAP folder to another, drag the message from the message view and drop it to the new folder.
Options
Account options are the same as for POP, with these additions:
- You can set the path to your IMAP root folder (if indicated by service provider)
- You can choose a folder on the IMAP server where you store messages sent from your IMAP account
Note: To take full advantage of IMAP capabilities, you should be connected to the Internet.
Exporting messages
If you want to export your e-mail messages from Opera for use with a clean Opera install or a different e-mail client, the easiest way is to make sure all incoming message types are displayed in the "Received" view. Then right-clicking it and selecting "Export". Opera will then export all the messages in the selected view to a single, compressed file that is convenient for import.
Note that any view in the mail panel can be exported individually. This includes sent messages and drafts.
News
While an e-mail message is usually sent to a single person or a few people, posting a news article can be compared to putting notices on a public bulletin board.
Setting up a news account
- Go to .
- Click "New" and select "News".
- Enter your name, e-mail address, and organization (optional).
- Enter the news-server information given to you by your service provider.
- Click "Finish" to create your new account.
Tip: To participate in newsgroups about Opera, enter news.opera.com as news server.
Subscribing to newsgroups
- Go to .
- Subscribe to groups by clicking the respective checkboxes in the list.
- Click to subscribe.
Tip: Enter text in the "Quick find" field to find particular newsgroups without scrolling through the whole list.
Reading news
To read a newsgroup, click the group you want to read under the "News at" heading in your mail panel. Reading and writing news articles is very similar to working with e-mail messages. Note, however, the following:
- Click "Reply" to post a follow-up article, as an answer to the article you are currently reading.
- Click "Reply all" to both post a follow-up and reply to the author by e-mail.
- Enter a comma-separated list of groups if you want to post your article in multiple groups (called "cross-posting").
- Enter e-mail addresses in the CC field to send people copies of the article by e-mail.
- Deleting a news article only deletes your local copy.
- Use "Cancel post" to attempt to delete an article from server. This is respected by some, but not all, news servers.
Learn more
- Learn to read your e-mail using the keyboard
- Learn more about the mail menu
- Read the on-line tutorial
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