You can create new local and IMAP mailboxes using the FileNew command, or by right-clicking in the mailbox list and selecting New Mailbox. This will start a dialog that will let you name the mailbox and specify its location.

To create a new POP3 mailbox, go to the preferences window, select the Mail options page, and click Add in the Remote mailbox servers area. A dialog will be displayed that will let you set up the new mailbox.

There are several methods available for moving or copying messages from one mailbox to another. The first is via the Transfer context menu, and the second is using drag and drop.

To transfer messages using the Transfer menu, simply select the messages you desire to move from one mailbox, then press ShiftF10 or Menu, or click the right mouse button, to bring up the context menu and select the Move to submenu. This will display a list of mailboxes similar to the mailbox list in the main window. The list can be scrolled and trees expanded and collapsed, although these changes will not be reflected in the main list. Selecting a mailbox will start the transfer.

The other method of transferring messages is to simply drag and drop the message(s) from the message index to the desired destination. Select the message(s) you wish to transfer, then drag them using the mouse until they are over the intended mailbox. The destination can either be in the mailbox list in the main window, or if open mailbox tabs are enabled the messages can be dragged to them.

First, create the IMAP folder as you want it configured. Then, press right mouse button on the mailbox entry and select Mark as Inbox. That is all!

Balsa can expand the names of your contacts it finds in Balsa addressbooks. It will do this by any part of the contact's name or email address.

As you type a username in any of the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: entry boxes in the Compose window, it will do a case insensitive search in the addressbook for a matching username, and pop up a list of matching complete addresses. Press Cursor-Down to highlight one of the addresses, and Enter to select it.

To enable this feature, you must select which address books you wish to be searched for aliases to expand. This can be done in the Preferences window, on the Address Books page. Also, some address books are expensive to lookup. You will need then to press Escape to explicitly expand the alias.

Only steps crucial for Balsa are described here. Some of the steps may be specific to OpenLDAP server. Whenever in doubt, consult the documentation provided with your LDAP server.

Balsa searches for objects having mail attribute. The search is done on the cn attribute and the search filter has a form “(&(mail=*)(cn=John D))”. Balsa uses cn(common name), givenName(given name), sn(surname) and mail(e-mail address) attributes of the found objects.