The KMail Handbook
Prev | Chapter 2. Getting Started | Next

# 2.2. Setting up your Account

The Network tab contains the settings that tell KMail how to send and receive your email. Many of these settings can vary greatly depending on the setup of your system and on the kind of network that your mail server is located. If you do not know what setting to pick or what to put in a field, consult your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or System Administrator.

The Properties section lets you customize how and when messages are sent.

Default send method lets you define what happens when a message is sent. If Send now is selected, the message is sent to the mail server immediately, while if Send later is selected, the message is queued in the outbox to be sent later with the File->Send Queued command or automatically when you check your mail, depending on the settings in the Miscellaneous tab.

Message Property lets you select how your message will be encoded when it is sent. Allow 8-bit means that KMail will send your message in 8 bit ASCII, which means that all special characters such as accented letters will be sent as-is. If MIME Compliant (Quoted Printable) is selected, special characters will be encoded using standard MIME encodings, which may be more portable to other mailing systems than 8-bit ASCII.

## 2.2.1. Sending Mail

The Sending Mail section provides two options for sending mail: sendmail and SMTP. Sendmail has a reputation of being difficult to set up, so if you do not already have a working sendmail configuration, choose SMTP and fill in the Server field with the name and domain of your mail server. You will probably not need to change the Port setting.

If you do want to use sendmail and you are using a dial-up connection, follow the instructions for setting up sendmail for a dial-up connection in the FAQ section.

## 2.2.2. Receiving Mail

To set up an account so you can receive mail, press the Add... button in the Incoming Mail section. You will then be prompted for the type of account. Most users should select Pop3 (IMAP accounts are not yet supported). After pressing OK you will be presented with the Add Account window. First, fill in the Name field to name your account. You can choose any name you like. Login, Password, and Host should be filled in with the appropriate information from your ISP or System Administrator. Again, you should not need to change the Port setting.

If you select Store POP password in configuration file KMail will remember your password so you won't have to type it every time you start KMail and fetch new mail. Be warned that we cannot really encrypt the password, so people who can access your configuration files (e.g. system administrators) can see your password if you select this option.

Select Delete mail from server if you don't want to leave your mail on the server. Leave the account's mailbox set to inbox for now, although you may want to change it if you add more accounts later.

Select Retrieve all mail from server if you want to get all mails, not only the new ones.

Select Exclude from "Check Mail" if you don't want to check this account whenever you use Check mail.... You can still check for new mail on this account with File->Check Mail in....

Select Enable interval mail checking if you want KMail to check for new mail automatically. The interval can be specified below under Check interval (minutes).

inbox is the default folder for incoming mail. If you want to change that for some reason, you can do so with Destination folder. But what you probably want is a filter, which has nothing to do with this option.

With Precommand you can specify any program KMail will execute just before fetching mail. Please specify the full path and note that KMail will not continue until the program returns.

You are now ready to send and receive mail!

Prev | Home | Next
Getting Started | Up | Testing your Setup