.TH Balsa 1 "February 2020" "Version 2.6.1" "Gnome Manpage"
.SH NAME
Balsa \- the GNOME e-mail client.
.SH DESCRIPTION
You can use Balsa to fetch, read, write and send e-mails.
.PP
It supports
  * local mailboxes in maildir, mbox and/or mh format,
  * nested mailboxes,
  * protocols POP3, IMAP and SMTP,
  * multithreaded mail retrieval,
  * GnuPG/GPG encryption, LDAP, Kerberos and SSL,
  * MIME (view images, save parts),
  * multiple character sets,
  * vCard, GPE, and other address book formats,
  * printing and spell-checking.
.PP
Balsa is an integral part of the GNOME desktop environment, but it can
also be used standalone though it may print some error messages then.
.PP
For help on using Balsa, see the documentation in its help menu using
the Yelp Gnome help/documentation browser.
.PP
This man page tells about the options of the '\fBbalsa\fR' command,
which is used to start Balsa.
.PP
Most of these options let you tell Balsa that when it starts
it should immediately open a mailbox, or the composer,
and things like that.
.PP
When you start Balsa from the command line,
not only can you use the command line options described below,
any error messages are printed to that terminal too
(whether you execute that command in the background or not).
.SH SYNTAX
\fBbalsa \fR[  \fB\-h \fR| \fB\-\-help                               \fR]
\fR      \fR[  \fB\-v \fR| \fB\-\-version                            \fR]
\fR      \fR[  \fB\-c \fR| \fB\-\-check\-mail                         \fR]
\fR      \fR[  \fB\-i \fR| \fB\-\-open\-inbox                         \fR]
\fR      \fR[( \fB\-m \fR| \fB\-\-compose=\fR)\fIemail-address             \fR]
\fR      \fR[( \fB\-a \fR| \fB\-\-attach=\fR)\fIfilename                   \fR]
\fR      \fR[( \fB\-o \fR| \fB\-\-open\-mailbox=)\fImailbox\fR[\fI:mailbox\fR]... ]
\fR      \fR[  \fB\-u \fR| \fB\-\-open\-unread\-mailbox                \fR]
\fR      \fR[  \fB\-s \fR| \fB\-\-get\-stats                          \fR]
.SH OPTIONS
.PP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
.RS
Displays a message describing command line syntax of Balsa,
giving many more options than are presented in this man page;
Balsa exits immediately after that.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
.RS
Balsa prints its version and exits.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-check\-mail\fR
.RS
Balsa starts and checks for new mail immediately.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-i\fR, \fB\-\-open\-inbox\fR
.RS
Balsa starts and opens the Inbox.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-m \fIemail-address\fR, \fB\-\-compose=\fIemail-address\fR
.RS
When invoked with this option,
Balsa will open its email-composer for a new message
with the specified address in the To: field.
.PP
The email-address parameter can be specified
as user@host, e.g. \fBbalsa-list@gnome.org\fR,
or in URL format, e.g. \fB"Balsa List <balsa-list@gnome.org>"\fR.
.PP
Balsa also serves as the mailto protocol handler.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-a \fIFILENAME\fR, \fB\-\-attach=\fIFILENAME\fR
.RS
When invoked with this option,
Balsa will open its email-composer for a new message
with the specified file already attached to the message.
.PP
Example : \fBbalsa -a ~/balsa-new.1.gz\fR
.RE
.PP
\fB\-o \fIMAILBOX\fR, \fB\-\-open\-mailbox=\fIMAILBOX\fR...
.RS
This makes \FIBalsa\FR start and open the specified mailbox.
The mailbox should be specified by its full URL.
.PP
Example : \fBbalsa -o imap://user@mail.example.com/INBOX\fR
\fBbalsa -o file:///var/mail/user\fR
.RE
.PP
\fB\-u\fR, \fB\-\-open\-unread\-mailbox\fR
.RS
Open all mailboxes that may contain unread messages.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-get\-stats\fR
.RS
Balsa prints the numbers of unread and unsent messages and exits.
.RE
.SH WEBSITE
Balsa's website is \fI
.UR https://pawsa.fedorapeople.org/balsa
https://pawsa.fedorapeople.org/balsa\fR

.SH SUGGESTIONS AND BUG REPORTS
Any bugs found in Balsa can be reported through
the Balsa Developer mailing list at \fBbalsa-list@gnome.org\fR,
or the online bug-tracking system at \fI
.UR https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/balsa/issues
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/balsa/issues\fR.
.PP
See \fI
.UR https://pawsa.fedorapeople.org/balsa/bugs.html
https://pawsa.fedorapeople.org/balsa/bugs.html\fR
for more information on reporting Balsa bugs.
.PP
Before reporting bugs, please check to see if the bug is mentioned
in the FAQ's or the mailing list archive \fI
.UR https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/balsa-list
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/balsa-list\fR.
.PP
When reporting Balsa bugs, it is important to include
  * a reliable way to reproduce the bug,
  * version number of Balsa (as well as GTK and GNOME),
  * OS name and version,
  * any relevant hardware specs.
.PP
If a bug is causing a crash, it is very useful if a stack trace can be
provided.
.PP
And of course, patches to rectify the bug are even better.
.PP
.SH AUTHORS
See the AUTHORS file included with Balsa, probably at
\fB/usr/share/doc/balsa-2.6.1/AUTHORS\fR.
.SH FILES
\fB ~/.balsa/config                   \fRBalsa's preferences file.
\fB ~/.balsa/config-private           \fRBalsa's POP and IMAP passwords file.
\fB /etc/sound/events/balsa.soundlist \fRsystem-wide configuration file
.SH SEE ALSO
Package names given in parenthesis are Debian package names.
.PP
\fBmailcap  \fR(5) - metamail capabilities file (package: mime-support)
.PP
\fBmetamail \fR(1) - infrastructure for mailcap-based multimedia mail
                                          (package: metamail)
.PP
\fBsendmail \fR(8) - a Mail Transfer Agent      (package: exim4-daemon-light)
.PP
\fByelp     \fR(1) - browse Gnome documentation (package: yelp)
.PP
\fBGNOME    \fR(1) - modern desktop environment (package: gnome-bin)
.SH COPYRIGHT
(c) 1997-2020 Stuart Parmenter and others, see AUTHORS for a list of people.
.PP
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty;
not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.