1Balsa(1) Gnome Manpage Balsa(1)
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6 Balsa - the GNOME e-mail client.
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9 You can use Balsa to fetch, read, write and send e-mails.
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11 It supports
12 * local mailboxes in maildir, mbox and/or mh format,
13 * nested mailboxes,
14 * protocols POP3, IMAP and SMTP,
15 * multithreaded mail retrieval,
16 * GnuPG/GPG encryption, LDAP, Kerberos and SSL,
17 * MIME (view images, save parts),
18 * multiple character sets,
19 * vCard, GPE, and other address book formats,
20 * printing and spell-checking.
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22 Balsa is an integral part of the GNOME desktop environment, but it can
23 also be used standalone though it may print some error messages then.
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25 For help on using Balsa, see the documentation in its help menu using
26 the Yelp Gnome help/documentation browser.
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28 This man page tells about the options of the 'balsa' command, which is
29 used to start Balsa.
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31 Most of these options let you tell Balsa that when it starts it should
32 immediately open a mailbox, or the composer, and things like that.
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34 When you start Balsa from the command line, not only can you use the
35 command line options described below, any error messages are printed to
36 that terminal too (whether you execute that command in the background
37 or not).
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40 balsa [ -h | --help ]
41 [ -v | --version ]
42 [ -c | --check-mail ]
43 [ -i | --open-inbox ]
44 [( -m | --compose=)email-address ]
45 [( -a | --attach=)filename ]
46 [( -o | --open-mailbox=)mailbox[:mailbox]... ]
47 [ -u | --open-unread-mailbox ]
48 [ -s | --get-stats ]
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51 -h, --help
52 Displays a message describing command line syntax of Balsa, giv‐
53 ing many more options than are presented in this man page; Balsa
54 exits immediately after that.
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56 -v, --version
57 Balsa prints its version and exits.
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59 -c, --check-mail
60 Balsa starts and checks for new mail immediately.
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62 -i, --open-inbox
63 Balsa starts and opens the Inbox.
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65 -m email-address, --compose=email-address
66 When invoked with this option, Balsa will open its email-com‐
67 poser for a new message with the specified address in the To:
68 field.
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70 The email-address parameter can be specified as user@host, e.g.
71 balsa-list@gnome.org, or in URL format, e.g. "Balsa List <balsa-
72 list@gnome.org>".
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74 Balsa also serves as the mailto protocol handler.
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76 -a FILENAME, --attach=FILENAME
77 When invoked with this option, Balsa will open its email-com‐
78 poser for a new message with the specified file already attached
79 to the message.
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81 Example : balsa -a ~/balsa-new.1.gz
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83 -o MAILBOX, --open-mailbox=MAILBOX...
84 This makes Balsa start and open the specified mailbox. The
85 mailbox should be specified by its full URL.
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87 Example : balsa -o imap://user@mail.example.com/INBOX balsa -o
88 file:///var/mail/user
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90 -u, --open-unread-mailbox
91 Open all mailboxes that may contain unread messages.
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93 -s, --get-stats
94 Balsa prints the numbers of unread and unsent messages and ex‐
95 its.
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98 Balsa's website is https://pawsa.fedorapeople.org/balsa
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102 Any bugs found in Balsa can be reported through the Balsa Developer
103 mailing list at balsa-list@gnome.org, or the online bug-tracking system
104 at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/balsa/issues.
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106 See https://pawsa.fedorapeople.org/balsa/bugs.html for more information
107 on reporting Balsa bugs.
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109 Before reporting bugs, please check to see if the bug is mentioned in
110 the FAQ's or the mailing list archive
111 https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/balsa-list.
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113 When reporting Balsa bugs, it is important to include
114 * a reliable way to reproduce the bug,
115 * version number of Balsa (as well as GTK and GNOME),
116 * OS name and version,
117 * any relevant hardware specs.
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119 If a bug is causing a crash, it is very useful if a stack trace can be
120 provided.
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122 And of course, patches to rectify the bug are even better.
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125 See the AUTHORS file included with Balsa, probably at
126 /usr/share/doc/balsa-2.6.3/AUTHORS.
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129 ~/.balsa/config Balsa's preferences file.
130 ~/.balsa/config-private Balsa's POP and IMAP passwords file.
131 /etc/sound/events/balsa.soundlist system-wide configuration file
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134 Package names given in parenthesis are Debian package names.
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136 mailcap [22m(5) - metamail capabilities file (package: mime-support)
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138 metamail (1) - infrastructure for mailcap-based multimedia mail
139 (package: metamail)
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141 sendmail (8) - a Mail Transfer Agent (package: exim4-daemon-light)
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143 yelp [22m(1) - browse Gnome documentation (package: yelp)
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145 GNOME [22m(1) - modern desktop environment (package: gnome-bin)
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148 (c) 1997-2020 Stuart Parmenter and others, see AUTHORS for a list of
149 people.
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151 This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is
152 NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
153 PURPOSE.
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157Version 2.6.3 February 2020 Balsa(1)