Claws Mail on Windows

How to get "debug" output for Claws Mail on Windows?

Claws Mail has an option to display a lot of low-level information during its run, to help developers figure out what's wrong in case of problems. When you report a bug, or ask for help on IRC channel, developers might request this from you.

On Windows, this information is saved into file named claws-win32.log, located at system default temporary directory (environment variable TEMP, to be precise). This is usually C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp, but can vary in different Windows versions.

To enable this debug output, you need to run claws-mail.exe with --debug option. You can do this either from the cmd.exe window, or by changing the Target in desktop or start menu shortcut for Claws mail to include this option.

Assuming you installed Claws Mail in default location, for 32-bit Claws Mail, the command or the Target should be (including the double-quotes): "C:\Program Files\Claws Mail (x86)\Claws Mail\claws-mail.exe" --debug For 64-bit Claws Mail, the command or the Target should be (including the double-quotes): "C:\Program Files\Claws Mail\Claws Mail\claws-mail.exe" --debug

Claws Mail will start normally, and you can try reproducing the issue you're having - performing actions that lead to the issue. The claws-win32.log will be continuously updated with debug output, depending on what the program is doing.

Once done, you should copy the file somewhere else (it gets renamed to claws-win32.log.bak and a new log is started everytime you start Claws Mail, even without the --debug option), and either send it to the developers, or look in it and try to look for clues for solving the issue. However, if you are not familiar with the source code of Claws Mail, most of the lines in this file will not make much sense to you.

This file does contain some private info, such as usernames (but never passwords), server hostnames, your Claws Mail folder structure, sometimes parts of individual e-mail messages you are working with. If you are uncomfortable with that, you can edit the copied file, but please make it known that you have modified the file when you send it to the developers, to prevent misunderstandings.