You can find a quick introduction to the Identities page in the Getting Started section.
This page allows you to create one or more Identities, i.e. combinations of name, email address and other settings. For example, you can create one identity for business communication and one for personal communication. If you have more than one email address, you can create one identity per address. You will then be able to select an identity on a per-message basis.
The page consists of a list of identities and buttons to manage them. The identities list will always show at least one identity, which is then the Default identity.
To add a new identity to the identity list, click on the button. The New identity dialog will then appear.
You have to enter the name of the new identity into the New Identity edit field. This will be the name shown in the identity list.
You can choose how the new identity should be initialized by checking one of the three radio buttons in the middle of the dialog:
All fields of the new identity are cleared or preset with standard values.
Uses the settings of the Control Center's default email profile (you can edit that one under -> in the Control Center).
Copies all fields from an existing identity. You can choose which identity to copy from by selecting the corresponding entry in the Existing identities popup.
The General tab allows you to specify some basic settings for the currently selected identity.
Enter your full name here (sometimes also called display name). Although this field is not strictly mandatory, it is recommended to enter the correct value here.
Enter your organization here. This field is optional.
Enter your email address here, i.e. something like
joe@example.com
.
The Cryptography tab allows you to specify OpenPGP and S/MIME keys associated with this identity, as well as choosing the preferred (cryptographic) message format to use.
Here you can select the key to be used when OpenPGP-signing messages written with this identity in effect.
For brevity, only the short key id of selected keys is shown. Hovering with the mouse over the key list will show more information in a tooltip.
To clear the label press the button.
To change the selected key, press the button. A dialog listing all secret OpenPGP keys will be shown allowing you to select the one to use.
Here you can select the key to OpenPGP-encrypt messages to when this identity and Always encrypt to self are in effect. This key is also used for the -> function of the Composer.
To change the selected key, press the button. A dialog listing all OpenPGP keys found in your keyring will be shown allowing you to select the one to use.
You can clear the list of keys and get more information about them in the same way as described for OpenPGP signing key .
Here you can select the certificate to be used when S/MIME-signing messages written with this identity in effect.
To change the selected certificate, press the button. A dialog listing all secret S/MIME signing certificates will be shown allowing you to select the one to use.
You can clear the list of certificates and get more information about them in the same way as described for OpenPGP signing key .
Here you can select the certificate to S/MIME-encrypt messages to when this identity and Always encrypt to self are in effect.
To change the selected certificate, press the button. A dialog listing all S/MIME encryption certificates found in your local keybox will be shown allowing you to select the one to use.
You can clear the list of certificates and get more information about them in the same way as described for OpenPGP signing key .
Here you can choose which cryptographic message format to use by default with this identity.
You can either select any of the four formats supported by KMail or leave the option at the recommended default setting of Any, which will choose a suitable format based on the recipients of the message, or might even go so far as to create two copies of the message, one S/MIME signed and/or encrypted, the other OpenPGP signed and/or encrypted.
The Advanced tab allows you to specify some rarely used or otherwise specialized settings for the currently selected identity.
Enter the address to which replies to your messages should be sent. Only fill out this field if it is different from your normal address (specified using the Name and Email Address on the General tab), since replies default to the sender's address anyway.
This field is only useful if you want replies to your mail to go somewhere else than your regular email address, e.g. if you are using this identity to send messages from an email address that cannot receive messages. Note that some mailing lists overwrite this header field with their post address to make sure that replies go to the list instead of individuals. So the usefulness of this field is very limited and it should only be used in rare cases.
Optionally enter an address to which blind copies of your messages should be sent to. Note that a BCC is only send to this address, when -> is activated while composing a message. If you want to send a BCC regardless of this setting, you should look at the Headers tab of the Composer page.
Select the folder into which messages should be filed after sending when using this identity. IMAP users should consider changing this to an IMAP folder, so their sent-mail is stored on a server instead of being stored in a local folder. This way they can access these messages at a different location.
You can exercise more fine-grained control over where to file sent messages by creating a corresponding message filter that is applied to outgoing messages.
Select the folder into which drafts should be filed when using this identity. IMAP users should consider changing this to an IMAP folder, so their drafts are stored on a server instead of being stored in a local folder. This way they can easily continue to work on their drafts at a different location.
Select or enter an alternative SMTP server to be used when sending messages using this identity.
You need to configure outgoing mail servers first, before you can choose them from the list. You can do this on the Sending tab of the Accounts page.
This tab allows you to specify a signature (sometimes called “footer” or “disclaimer”) to be appended to each message sent using this identity.
This type of signature has nothing to do with the (digital) signatures for which you can select the keys to use on the Cryptography tab. It is just bad wording to call this a signature, but since the term is already used everywhere else, we keep this notation. Just keep in mind that these signatures and digital signatures are two completely different things.
Check the Enable signature option if you want to be able to append the signature when using this identity. To automatically append it to every new message you also have to select Automatically append signature in the Composer configuration page.
KMail can obtain the signature text from various sources. The
traditional way on Unix is to read the text from a file called
.signature
in your home folder. This file can
be shared between several programs, so you get the same
signature in each mail program you use.
To read the text from a text file you select Obtain signature text from file. Enter the filename in the Specify file edit field or hit the button to the right of it to browse your filesystem. If you want to edit the file, hit the Edit File button.
KMail can also read the signature text from the output of a command. Thus, you can use programs such as fortune to create a new signature text for every message. Everything the program prints onto stdout is caught and used as the signature text.
To read the text from the output of a command you select Obtain signature text from Output of Command. Enter the command (preferably with full path) in the Specify command edit field.
As a third option, you can enter the signature text directly in KMail's configuration dialog. To do this, select Obtain signature text from input field below and enter the text into the appearing text box.
On the Internet, signatures are by convention separated from the body of the message by a line containing only the three character “-- ” (dash, dash, space). KMail will automatically prepend the signature text with this line if it is not already present in the signature text.
If you do not wish the separator to be prepended automatically by KMail, simply add it to the signature text yourself.
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