Configuring Your Email Account

New Account Configuration Dialog

The first thing that you will need to do is to tell Pooka where your email is stored. Pooka supports three kinds of email accounts: Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3, or POP), Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP), or local UNIX mail files (mbox).

The second thing that you will need to configure is your outgoing mail information. For that you need (at least) three pieces of information: your email address, your personal name, and the name of your SMTP server.

Pooka will use your connection information to provide an email address; if this information is incorrect (if, for instance, your username is me , your IMAP server is imap.example.com, but your correct email address is actually me@example.com instead of me@imap.example.com), you can change it in the User Configuration screen.

Your full name
This will be put in the Personal Name field of outgoing email. It can be whatever you want, but it's a good idea to make it something that will be recognizable to the recipients of your email.
SMTP server
The server that will accept outgoing mail. This should be provided by your ISP.

Configuring IMAP mailboxes

There are three pieces of information needed to configurate an IMAP mailbox: the username of your account, the password for your account (optional, see below), and the name of the server which stores your email. All of this information should be available from your ISP.

You can either enter your account's password in at this time, or you can leave this field blank. If you leave the field blank, then you will be prompted for your account password every time you run Pooka. However, if you do enter your password, your password will be stored in your Pooka Configuration file. While the password will be encoded such that a casual reading won't reveal it, a person could use the Pooka source code in order to decrypt the string into your actual password.

IMAP options

New Account Configuration Dialog
Location of local files
Where local files will be held. These files include the approved SSL certificates files (if connecting over SSL), an Address Book file, and any locally cached messages (if using disconnected IMAP). This will also be the default location for the local Sent and Outbox folders.
Connect over SSL
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) provides a secure, encrypted connection between two machines. IMAP connections by default send your account information across the network in plaintext, and thus are fairly insecure. So if your ISP offers IMAP over SSL, it is usually a good idea to take advantage of it. Note that Pooka uses the default IMAPS port (port 993) for IMAP over SSL connections; if your ISP puts their IMAP/SSL connections on a different port, you will need to configure this in the Store Configuration screen.
Enable disconnected operation
By default, IMAP mail is stored on the remote server rather than downloaded onto the client machine. This means that, while you save time and disk space by not having to download and store old messages on your own computer, you sacrifice the ability of read your email while the network connection to your mail server is unavailable. Enabling disconnected operation makes it so Pooka stores a copy of your messages locally on your client, thus allowing you to read your messages offline.

Configuring POP3 Accounts

There are three pieces of information needed to configurate an IMAP mailbox: the username of your account, the password for your account (optional, see below), and the name of the server which stores your email. All of this information should be available from your ISP.

You can either enter your account's password in at this time, or you can leave this field blank. If you leave the field blank, then you will be prompted for your account password every time you run Pooka. However, if you do enter your password, your password will be stored in your Pooka Configuration file. While the password will be encoded such that a casual reading won't reveal it, a person could use the Pooka source code in order to decrypt the string into your actual password.

POP3 Options

New Account Configuration Dialog
Location of local files
Where local files will be held. These files include the messages downloaded from the POP server, as well as the approved SSL certificates files (if connecting over SSL) and an Address Book file.
Connect over SSL
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) provides a secure, encrypted connection between two machines. POP3 connections by default send your account information across the network in plaintext, and thus are fairly insecure. So if your ISP offers POP3 over SSL, it is usually a good idea to take advantage of it. Note that Pooka uses the default POP3S port (port 995) for POP3 over SSL connections; if your ISP puts their POP3/SSL connections on a different port, you will need to configure this in the Store Configuration screen.
Leave messages on server
Pooka can either be configured to download messages and then delete them off the server immediately, or to leave the messages on the server until they are deleted on the client.

Configuring local (mbox) stores

Location of inbox file
Where your local mail spool is located. Usually something like /var/spool/mail/username
Location of local files
Where local files will be held. These files include any personal mail folders that you create, as well as the approved SSL certificates files (if connecting over SSL) and an Address Book file.