Kontact can manage multiple e-mail accounts, such as your private e-mail and your business ones. Creating separate identities for your different e-mail accounts allows you to associate different sender addresses, cryptography settings and signatures with each of them. To create an identity, select Settings+Configure KMail and choose Identities+Add. Determine whether to create a new identity from scratch, use the user settings from Personal Settings+Password & User Account, or whether to duplicate an existing identity.

To create a new identity from scratch, enter the name of the new identity and enter your name, organization and e-mail address in the General tab. Optionally, configure one or several of the following options:

Before you can send or receive e-mails, create one or several accounts. The settings under Accounts determine how Kontact receives and sends e-mail. Many of these settings vary depending on the system and network in which your mail server is located. If you are not sure about the settings or items to select, consult your ISP or system administrator.

To compose new messages, select Message+New Message or click the corresponding icon in the toolbar. To send messages from different e-mail accounts, select one of the identities as described in Section 4.2.1, “Configuring Identities”. In To, enter an e-mail address or part of a name or address in your address book. If Kontact can match what you enter to something in the address book, a selection list opens. Click the desired contact or complete your input if none matches. To select directly from the address book, click the ... button next to the Address field.

To attach files to your message, click the paper clip icon and select the file to attach. Alternatively, drag a file from the desktop or another folder to the New Message window or select one of the options in the Attach menu. Normally, the format of a file is recognized correctly. If the format is not recognized, right-click the icon. From the menu that appears, select Properties. Set the format and filename in the next dialog and add a description. In addition, decide whether the attached file should be signed or encrypted.

When you are finished composing your message, send it immediately with Message+Send or move it to the outbox with Message+Queue. If you send the e-mail, the message is copied to sent-mail after having been sent successfully. Messages moved to the outbox can be edited or deleted.

Message folders help organize your messages. By default, they are located in the ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail directory. When starting KMail for the first time, the program creates several folders. inbox is where new messages fetched from a server are initially placed. outbox is used for temporary storage of messages queued for sending. sent-mail is for copies of messages sent. trash contains copies of all e-mails deleted with Del or Edit+Delete. drafts is where you can save unfinished messages. If you are using IMAP, the IMAP folders are listed below the local folders. Each incoming mail server has its folders in the Folder list.

If you want to organize your messages in additional folders, create new folders by selecting Folder+New Folder. This opens a window in which to specify the name and format of the new folder.

Right-click the folder for a context menu offering several folder operations. Click Expire to specify the expiration date for read and unread messages, what should happen with them after expiration, and whether expired messages should be deleted or moved to a folder. If you intend to use the folder to store messages from a mailing list, set the necessary options under Folder+Mailing List Management.

To move one or several messages from one folder to another, drag them from the upper window and drop them into the appropriate folder in the left window. Messages can also be moved by highlighting the messages then pressing M or selecting Message+Move to. In the list of folders that appears, select the folder to which to move your messages.

E-mail is an insecure medium as anyone could theoretically read your e-mails or send some in your name. By signing your e-mails you enable the recipient of your e-mails to verify the sender of the messages as the key used to sign is only available to you. By encrypting the contents of your e-mails make sure that they can only be read by the recipient. KMail supports both the signing and encryption of e-mails.

Set up KMail for signing and encrypting e-mails:

To import e-mail from other applications, select File+Import Messages from the mail view in Kontact. It currently features import filters for Outlook Express, the mbox format, e-mail text format, Pegasus Mail, Opera, Evolution, and more. The import utility can also be started separately with the command kmailcvt.

Select the corresponding application and confirm with Continue. A file or a folder must be provided, depending on the selected type. Kontact then completes the process.

Filters are a convenient method of automatically processing incoming mail. They use aspects of the mail, such as sender or size, to move mail to certain folders, delete unwanted mails, bounce mails back to the sender, or perform a number of other actions.

To add a contact with the name and e-mail address from an e-mail, right-click the address in the mail component and select Open in Address Book. To add a new contact without using an e-mail, select File+New Contact in the address component. Both methods open a dialog in which to enter information about the contact.

In the General tab, enter basic contact information, such as name, e-mail addresses, and telephone numbers. Categories can be used to sort addresses. Details contains more specific information, such as birthday and spouse's name.

If your contact uses an instant messenger, you can add these identities in IM Addresses. If you do this and have Kopete or another KDE chat program running at the same time as Kontact, view status information about these identities in Kontact. In Crypto Settings, enter the contact's encryption data, such as public key.

Misc has additional information, such as a photograph and the location of the user's Free/Busy information. Use Custom Fields to add your own information to the contact or address book.

Contacts can also be imported in a variety of formats. Use File+Import and select the desired format. Then select the file to import.

If you frequently send e-mail messages to the same group of people, a distribution list enables you to store multiple e-mail addresses as a single contact item so that you do not need to enter each name individually in every e-mail you send to that group. First, click Settings+Show Extension Bar+Distribution List Editor. In the new section that appears, click New List. Enter a name for the list then click OK. Add contacts to the list by dragging them from the address list and dropping them in the distribution list window. Use this list like you would an individual contact when creating an e-mail.

	Groupware Address Books
The best way to add groupware resources is with the Groupware Wizard, a separate tool. To use it, close Kontact then run groupwarewizard in a command line or from the Office group of the KDE menu. Select the server type, such as SLOX, GroupWise, or Exchange, from the list offered then enter the address and authentication data. The wizard then adds the available resources to Kontact.

Kontact can access multiple address books, such as shared ones offered by Novell GroupWise or an LDAP server. Select Settings+Show Extension Bar+Address Books to view the current address books. Press Add to add one then select the type and enter the required information.

The check boxes in front of the address books show the activation status of each address book. To prevent the display of a book without deleting it, uncheck it. Remove deletes the selected book from the list.

Add a new event or meeting with Actions+New Event. Enter the desired details. Under Reminder, specify the exact time (minutes, hours, or days in advance) when the attendees should be reminded of the event. If an event recurs, specify the appropriate interval. Another way to create an event at a specific point in the calendar is to double-click the corresponding field in one of the program's calendar views. This opens the same dialog window as that available from the menu. Alternatively, select a time range in the Calendar view and right-click.

Specify the attendees of an event by entering their data manually in the dialog or by inserting data from the address book. To enter data manually, select New. To import data from the address book, click Select Addressee then select the corresponding entries from the dialog. To schedule the event based on the participants' availability, go to Free/Busy and click Pick Date.

Use the Recurrence tab to configure an event that happens on a regular basis. Attachments can be convenient for linking other information with the event, such as an agenda for a meeting.

	Groupware Calendars
The best way to add groupware resources is with Groupware Wizard, a separate tool. To use it, close Kontact then run groupwarewizard in a command line or from the Office group of the KDE menu. Select the server type, such as SLOX, GroupWise, or Exchange, from the list offered then enter the address and authentication data. The wizard adds the available resources to Kontact.

The calendar module can connect to multiple calendars simultaneously. This is useful, for example, to combine a personal calendar with an organizational one. To add a new calendar, click Add then select the calendar type. Complete the necessary fields.

The check boxes in front of the calendars show the activation status of each. To prevent the display of a calendar without deleting it, uncheck it. Remove deletes the selected calendar from the list.

Accessing your GroupWise server is not very different from accessing an IMAP or POP3 server. Proceed as follows:

To access your GroupWise calendar through Kontact, proceed as follows:

This section contains hints to help GroupWise users work with some of the differences between GroupWise and Kontact: