Claws Mail 4.4.0 unleashed

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 10, 2026

9th March 2026                                      Claws Mail 4.4.0
                    CLAWS MAIL  RELEASE NOTES
                    http://www.claws-mail.org
Claws Mail is a GTK+ based, user-friendly, lightweight, and fast 
email client.
This release marks 25 years of Claws Mail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UI
* Several updates to strings and icons.
* The word 'Write' is now used in place of 'Compose'.
  e.g. 'Write email'; 'Write' preferences page, etc. 
* Hide Message List's horizontal scrollbar by default if not
  using GENERIC_UMPC.
* Added a new hidden preference, 'mainwin_toolbar_always_enable_actions',
  (turned off by default). Activating this option means that toolbar
  items bound to user Actions (in the main window) will be active even
  when no messages are selected.
* Navigation using the numpad arrow keys is now possible.
* A new Colour preference has been added: 'Messages marked for moving
  or deletion'. This is used when 'execute immediately' is switched off.
* Compose window: When re-editing a drafted message, the user will now
  be prompted to save any changes made to the message headers.
* Compose window: when the contents of a header field are cleared, the
  Clear button becomes a Delete button, enabling the now empty row to
  be removed completely.
* Folder properties: two new options to handle HTML content have been
  added to the General page:
  'Render HTML messages as text' and 'Render HTML messages with plugin
  if possible'.
* Folder properties: a new option, 'Show tags' has been added. This
  controls whether any message tags are displayed at the top of the
  Message View.
Plugins
* SpamAssassin: updated third-party code to 4.0.1.
* Mail Archiver: added support for Zstandard compression (zstd)
  (libarchive >= 3.4.0 required).
* RSSyl: the default User-Agent string has been changed to 
  ClawsMailRSSyl/$VERSION ($URL); this can be changed in the plugin's
  preferences, and can be further set on a per-feed basis on the
  'Feed properties' page.
* RSSyl: added a preference so that feeds configured for manual
  updates only are not updated when refreshing all feeds (recursively
  by the context menu, timer or at start-up, if enabled).
* RSSyl: store and send ETag and Last-Modified headers.
* RSSyl: postpone auto-updates if the server sends a Retry-After:
  header. A successful manual update clears the Retry-After value.
* PGP: display a specific message, ("This key is not in your
  keyring") in the NoticeView area when a key is not in the keyring.
* PGP: added an option to automatically locate missing keys when
  sending encrypted messages.
* PGP: a missing key can now optionally be retrieved by clicking the
  NoticeView icon.
* PGP: added a 'Search for PGP key' context menu item to email
  addresses in the Message View.
* Notification: Ayatana indicator can now be configured to limit
  notifications to certain folders only.
* Notification: added 'Open address book' entry to Ayatana indicator's
  tray menu.
OAUTH2
* Configuration is now stored in a dedicated file: oauth2rc, located
  in the configuration directory. This file allows a user to
  accommodate an API change by a service provider, or to add a completely
  new Oauth2-based email provider of their choice. Setting protected=1
  within an edited or bespoke block protects it from being overwritten
  by a new version of Claws Mail.
Build System
* GnuTLS >= 3.4.0 is now the minimum requirement.
* libetpan >= 1.9.4 is now the minimum requirement.
* dbus-glib support has been migrated to GDBus (GIO) >= 2.26
  and D-Bus (>= 0.60).
* The summary of the configure output has been completed.
Other
* A new hidden preference has been added: "show_contact_pic".
  When viewing a message, if the sender is in your address book and
  you have saved a picture for the contact there, this option will
  display that picture unless the Header Pane is displayed or you
  have chosen not to display (X-)Face or "enable_avatars" is set to
  '0'. 
  If you have a large address book it is recommended that you leave
  this option turned off to avoid delays in displaying messages.
* The wizard now uses secure defaults.
* Various code cleanups, fixes, and enhancements.
* The English, French and Spanish manuals have been updated.
* Updated translations: British English, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, French,
  German, Romanian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.
* bug fixes:
        * bug 4498, 'About window resizing issues'
        * bug 4586, 'PDF Viewer view breaks in Three Column layout'
        * bug 4764, 'Wrapped UTF8 encoded subject line displayed with
                     nonexistent quotation marks'
        * bug 4834, 'Long email addresses in vCalendar invites cause
                     the attachments bar on the right side to be hidden
                     until restart'
        * bug 4841, 'qutoted-printable encoding breaks text/html file
                     with extraordinarily long lines, base64 does not'
        * bug 4846, 'Preferences-> Toolbars: always show icon preview
                     on button'
        * bug 4848, 'The new ayatana tray icon displays no icon when
                     there are new messages'
        * bug 4850, 'Show error dialog on receive error translation'
        * bug 4852, 'Cancel messages contain Approved-header'
        * bug 4854, 'auto-wrapping off not respected when using
                     external editor'
        * bug 4856, 'Build fails with gettext 0.24'
        * bug 4863, 'Account Preferences Minor UI inconsistency'
        * bug 4882, 'IMAP can not use client certificate with
                     passphrase'
        * bug 4887, 'Dillo processes are not killed when an HTML
                     message is no longer being viewed'
        * bug 4893, 'Clamd plugin not checking any mail'
        * bug 4897, ''small screen' view: crash when exiting view
                     message list after deleting all messages/mails
                     in folder.'
        * bug 4898, 'When entering folder message list is not
                     scrolling to selected message'
        * bug 4902, 'memory leak in the spam_report plug-in'
        * bug 4930, 'remove duplicate signature flag from MimeView'
        * bug 4931, 'avoid memory leak in summary_set_header'
        * fix bug where viewing msgs in the separate msg view are not
          marked as read when the msgview panel is hidden
                * litehtml plugin build failure on Windows
                * 'Save email as...' from the separate message view would save
           whatever was selected in the summaryview rather than what was
           open in the message view.
        * when message view is closed
                1. select a msg;
                2. hit [v] (key),
                3. open the mime structure list
                4. select a part in the structure tree
                5. hit [v] --[crash]--
        * fix header pane bug whereby a very long header value would
          push the mime icons panel out of the visible area.
        * do not attempt to delete a tag from list when the edit tag
          entry has focus.
For further details of the numbered bugs and RFEs listed above
see https://www.claws-mail.org/bug/[BUG NUMBER]
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See ChangeLog for full information regarding changes in this release.
        

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