I used Sylpheed to read email because

• it is to the point
• it is light
• you get the number of unread messages in each folder (interesting with IMAP and procmail)
• it supports X-Face
• it is easy to add new local accounts

So, far not many tips & tricks…

A nice fork of Sylpheed is Claws Mail which has more features.

I got some problems with an imap-courier server (on Debian woody and then sarge):

Sylpheed connects to the server, but I don't get my emails.

I first get the previous list in the INBOX, all other folders are empty and then I can't get anything anymore. It goes away like it comes…

When replying, if the quoted part is longer than 80 characters, it doesn't wrap the lines:

see http://sylpheeddoc.sourceforge.net/en/manual/manual-8.html (look for wrap)