[Skip to content]

Opera

This is what Opera.com looks like when you surf with your mobile!

You can surf on Opera.com with your mobile today. All you need to do is to download and install Opera Mini.

Opera Mini works on almost every phone, and it’s free!

View full site

Customizing Opera Mail

As with the Opera browser in general, Opera Mail can be customized in many ways. In ths topic, we've listed just a few ideas below on how to customize it to suit you.

Edit Opera Mail and news accounts

You can customize Opera Mail by editing the account details. To edit account details:

  1. Go to Tools > Mail and chat accounts.
  2. Select the account.
  3. Click Edit. The Account Properties dialog displays, in which you can edit details. See the table below for information on how you can edit accounts.

Useful ways of customizing Opera Mail accounts

If you want to...Then Edit account details and...
Use low bandwidth mode On the Incoming tab, tick checkbox for 'Low bandwidth mode'. For POP, this means that Opera does not fetch more than the first 100 lines of a message unless requested. For IMAP, Opera only synchronizes new messages and does not fetch attachments unless requested.
Add a custom account category Accounts can also be organized into categories, so you can select between groups of accounts, e.g. to only display your three work accounts or your two home accounts. To set up a new, custom category:
  1. On the General tab, add a custom account category.
  2. Type a new category name or choose an existing category from the drop-down.
Set up an alternate address people should send replies to
  1. Select the General tab.
  2. Type the email address in the Reply-To field.
Send copies (Cc) or blind copies (Bcc) of all messages sent to a particular e-mail address
  1. Select the General tab.
  2. Type the email address in the CC or BCC fields.
Show a warning for empty subject line
  1. Select the Outgoing tab.
  2. Click the checkbox for this option.
Add a signature or message line on all sent messages
  1. Select the Outgoing tab.
  2. Type the signature or message line in the Signature field.
Change incoming server settings:
  1. Select the Incoming tab.
  2. Click the relevant checkboxes to:
    • leave or store messages on server.
    • download or store message bodies.
    • change timeframe for checking for new messages or disable automatic checking.
    • set a sound to play when new messages arrive.

Account settings storage

Account settings are stored in the accounts.ini file, located in your Mail directory. See: Help > About for the exact location of this file. Information for each account is stored in a separate section of the configuration file. To find the relevant account section, search for your e-mail address and change the settings for that account.

Switch off notification for new messages

To switch off notification for new messages, you need to use the Opera browser tool settings.

  1. Go to Tools in the Opera menu bar and select Preferences.
  2. Select the Advanced tab.
  3. Click Notifications.
  4. Deselect Show notification for new messages.

Important note: Close Opera before making configuration file changes.

Customize the Mail window

You can customize the Mail window in Opera Mail, as outlined in the table below.

If you want to...Then...
Restrict the display of messages to one account, account type or category
  1. Right-click anywhere in the Mail panel.
  2. Select Show messages from.
  3. Select from the account options listed (default is All). The Mail and News account settings restrict message display to only e-mail accounts or newsgroup accounts respectively. Choosing one of your e-mail or news accounts will restrict message display to only that account. If you have set up a custom account category, select the custom category to display messages from that category exclusively.
Edit the Mail toolbar
  1. Go to Tools > Appearance.
  2. Click Buttons and select Mail or Mail view.
  3. Drag and drop buttons or fields to the Mail toolbar.
  4. To remove buttons or fields, right-click and select Remove from toolbar.
Change the color of Unread message status The color of Unread messages follow the color settings of normal links.
  1. Go to Tools > Preferences.
  2. Click Web pages and select Normal link color.
  3. Select a color and click OK to confirm.

Customize mail headers

You can customize how the mail headers display, for example, you can remove the To field from display. To customize headers, right-click a header and select Customize. In the dialog, you have options to:

  • change the order of header display by moving them up or down.
  • edit the header properties to toggle the header name, new line for the header, right alignment or use a large font.
  • add a new header.
  • delete a header.

Customize composition settings

There are ways to further customize settings for composing messages:

If you want to...Then...
Set automatic completion of Reply-To, CC or BCC fields
  1. Go to Tools > Mail and chat accounts.
  2. Select the account and click Edit.
  3. Select the General tab.
  4. Type the recipient(s) in the relevant field.
Change the font used in the message composition window
  1. Go to Tools > Preferences.
  2. Select the Advanced tab.
  3. Click Fonts.
  4. Click E-mail compose.
  5. Click Choose and select a font from the list.
Override the encoding setting for your account on a per-message basis
  1. Go to View > Encoding.
  2. If the current message contains characters that are not part of the selected encoding, select View from the mail toolbar and click to tick Encoding. The default override value is "UTF-8".

Create message templates

You can use Opera's Notes feature to create message templates. Open the Notes panel and create a folder to store your templates. Add a new note and add the template for your message as the note text. Whenever you want to use this template, either select the note in the Notes panel and double-click it, or right-click a message composition window, and pick the template from the Insert note sub-menu.

Thanks to Mark Schenk for this idea.

You can also create message templates using drafts:

  1. Open a message composition window and create the message template. The draft is automatically saved in Drafts.
  2. Create a new custom filter to store your templates.
  3. Check Hide messages from other views in the filter properties.
  4. Click OK to save your changes.
  5. Drag the message template from Drafts to Templates.
  6. To use the template, click the template in the created filter and compose your message.

Thanks to MarcFou for this idea.

Use Opera Mail offline

To read and compose messages offline:

  1. Go to File > Work offline to avoid Opera connecting to the Internet unless explicitly told to do so.
  2. Replies and sent messages offline remain queued in the Outbox view.
  3. When you are next online in Opera, click Check/Send in the Mail panel and select Send queued, or press Ctrl+Shift+K to send replies and messages.