Claws Mail Keyboard Shortcuts

Claws Mail is a simple yet powerful e-mail client for the Linux desktop. Its developers designed the program as an intuitive graphical client that can act as a general task organizer. Like Emacs, Claws Mail can work as your mail reader, news aggregator, and RSS reader.

Essential Claws Mail Keybindings

With Claws Mail, you can use a variety of keybindings to explore and access every function of the program. This includes editing messages through an external text editor and displaying e-mail headers in full. These keyboard shortcuts make Claws Mail one of the best Linux e-mail clients.

The Claws Mail interface is also quick and highly flexible. This cheatsheet will focus on the program’s default set of keybindings so you can get started.

Shortcut	Function
Interface Manipulation
Esc	Exit from any dialog box or menu window.
Ctrl + Shift + A	Open the Claws Mail address book.
Ctrl + Shift + L	Open the Activity Log window.
Ctrl + F12	Toggle the visibility of the Menu Bar.
V	Toggle the display of the message preview panel.
Ctrl + P	Open the Print Dialog for the currently selected e-mail.
Ctrl + Q	Exit from the current Claws Mail session.
E-mail Navigation
N	Go to the next e-mail in the message list.
P	Go to the previous e-mail in the message list.
Shift + N	Go to the next unread e-mail in the message list.
Shift + P	Go to the previous unread e-mail in the message list.
Ctrl + T	Toggle between threaded and flat message list display.
Ctrl + Shift + F	Search for an e-mail in the currently active folder.
/	Search for a specific string in the current e-mail.
G	Navigate to a different folder in the current e-mail account.
Ctrl + Alt + U	Refresh the current message list.
E-mail Management
Ctrl + I	Fetch all unread e-mails from the current account.
Ctrl + Shift + I	Fetch all unread e-mails from all active accounts in Claws Mail.
Ctrl + W	Prepare Claws Mail to work without network connection.
Ctrl + Shift + S	Fetch and send all e-mails from all active accounts in Claws Mail.
Ctrl + O	Move the currently selected e-mail to a different folder.
Ctrl + Shift + O	Copy the currently selected e-mail to a different folder.
Ctrl + S	Save the currently selected e-mail to an external file.
Ctrl + D	Move the currently selected e-mail to the Trash folder.
Shift + D	Permanently delete all the e-mails in the Trash folder.
Ctrl + M	Compose a new e-mail.
Ctrl + R	Reply to the currently selected e-mail.
Ctrl + Shift + R	Reply to all recipient addresses in the current e-mail thread.
Ctrl + L	Reply to a mailing list message.
Ctrl + Alt + F	Forward the current e-mail to a different recipient.
E-mail Tagging
Shift + 8	Mark the currently selected e-mail.
U	Unmark a marked e-mail.
Shift + 1	Mark the currently selected e-mail as “Unread.”
Ctrl + Shift + T	Add and edit the tags for the current e-mail thread.
Ctrl + 1	Mark the current e-mail with an Orange label.
Ctrl + 2	Mark the current e-mail with a Red label.
Ctrl + 3	Mark the current e-mail with a Pink label.
Ctrl + 4	Mark the current e-mail with a Light Blue label.
Ctrl + 5	Mark the current e-mail with a Blue label.
Ctrl + 6	Mark the current e-mail with a Green label.
Ctrl + 7	Mark the current e-mail with a Brown label.
Ctrl + 8	Mark the current e-mail with a Gray label.
Ctrl + 9	Mark the current e-mail with a Light Brown label.
Ctrl + 0	Remove any color label to the current e-mail thread.
Composition Window
Ctrl + Enter	Send the e-mail that you are currently writing.
Ctrl + Shift + S	Schedule your e-mail to be sent at a later date.
Ctrl + S	Save your e-mail on an external file.
Ctrl + Z	Undo the last change that you made to your e-mail.
Ctrl + Y	Redo the last change that you made to your e-mail.
Ctrl + A	Select the text inside your composition window.
Ctrl + X	Cut the text that you selected to your clipboard.
Ctrl + C	Copy the text that you selected to your clipboard.
Ctrl + V	Paste the contents of your clipboard to the current point.
Ctrl + L	Wrap the current paragraph within the composition window.
Ctrl + Shift + L	Enable auto-wrapping in the current window.
Ctrl + Shift + X	Edit the current e-mail through an external editor.
Composition Window Editing
Ctrl + B	Move the cursor one character backwards.
Ctrl + F	Move the cursor one character forwards.
Ctrl + E	Move the cursor to the end of the line.
Ctrl + P	Move the cursor to the previous line.
Ctrl + N	Move the cursor to the next line.
Ctrl + H	Delete the character before the cursor.
Ctrl + D	Delete the character after the cursor.
Ctrl + U	Delete the current line.
Ctrl + K	Delete the text from the cursor until the end of the line.

_{Image Credit: Unsplash and Wikimedia Commons. All alterations by Ramces Red.}