Thunderbird:Collected User Requests

discussions often consist of more than 50% signature, 10% greetings 10% goodbyes 20% in-line quoting and only 10% information. Marking the signatures and "*** wrote:" could ease readability and reduce clutter (if being removed automatically).

There might as well be a link to the address book if a signature is recognized (especially when an electronically verified signature is offered) --BoP 07:00, 24 February 2007 (PST)

Comment: The ability to append the signature BEFORE the quoted reply text (upon clicking on the "Reply" button) would be most useful. Reply text can then be typed BEFORE the quoted text of previous email.

Position cursor as user has requested when replying

Even when an user requests to reply above the message they are replying to, very often Thunderbird brings the user to start composing under the message. This is annoying and should be fixed.

• If you actually are seeing a problem with this, it probably has to do with replying to message sent to an identity that hasn't been configured for Put My Reply Above Quote. If you can prove a counterexample, then you should open a bug for this in Bugzilla. --mcow 12:08, 12 Mar 2005 (PST)

Related to the above is a feature request I just wrote to MozillaZine about dynamically determining the correct answering order (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=1399996). VilleP 10:12, 19 Apr 2005 (PDT)

Store Option settings in the user profile

It looks like every time Thunderbird is reinstalled, all the settings under Tools->Options... are lost. They should be saved in the user profile, together with the mail account settings and mail messages.

Features from GMail

There are several features from GMail I would like to see incorporated into Thunderbird, primarily Conversations and Labels. Oberiko

I 2nd the labels (a.k.a. "tags")! Is this filed as a feature request? Dfrankow 18:07, 8 Dec 2005 (PST)

+1 for conversations and labels. Enabling the GTD / Lifehacker / GMail "1 big folder + search" usage pattern would be great; conversations and labels are essential for this. midfield 2 April 2006

I support the request for adding these 2 features. I don't have any experience in hacking mozilla, but given some assistance I would love to take part in the development of these two features that I find to be the biggest advantage of GMail. --Amitbk 23:49, 7 May 2006 (PDT)

I would also like to see conversations added, this is an extremly useful feature for any email user, and I am suprised that more people are not crying out for this functionality in external e-mail clients as this would allow the ingenuity of Gmails system, to be combined with the essentials of Thunderbird (such as new e-mail notification) to form the best e-mail client possible (in my view!). --ZeroCool 02:41, 26 November 2006 (PST)

Completely agree! +Seamless integration of the Calendar system and the contact list would make it solid for work. -- mjlar94 6:53 Apr. 13, 08 (EST)

If these Gmail features are implemented, I hope there's a checkbox to turn it off, because I find the Gmail presentation to be confusing, which is why I use Thunderbird to read my Gmail account! -- Cwolf127 1306, 27 July 2008

For conversation, we could just add sent mails to converations threads, this will produce mostly the same feature as Gmail (without the look, but that's not the goal ?)

Combine and Decode

There is a feature in outlook express I simply cannot live without. It allows you to combine several usenet postings into one "virtual post" and then decode any binaries that may be contained within. Often posters who post binary files will break up the binary file accords several posts got get past may possible post size restrictions. Please add this feature so I may finally put lookOut Express to rest; pernamently.

Multiple Labels

Only if we had capability to assign multiple labels to a message. (And have an easy way to create new labels. Of course we need more than 5) We could do away with the need to create folders and filing messages.

I would like to add some remarks concerning this feature (for me it would be a significant improvement)

An email can belong to many labels (e.g. different projects or relations -family, friend, professional etc...).

This could also allow the user to insert an email in the discussion list. I receive many times answers from users which changes the title of the initial email. Thus currently such emails cannot belong to the initial discussion.

Such feature can really improve a message search. Such proposal can also resolve or help to develop some other items like

• Link_between_message_and_reply
• Filter_Grouping
• Label_button_in_toolbar
• features_from_Opera_M2_Mail

This could be based on a database management like MySQL. The sender, receivers list, date, subject ... could be one of the default database key (label).

Support for yEnc

Please add support for yEnc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenc). Despite its flaws the use of yEnc only continues to increase amongst binary groups.

It should be possible, to send a vCard from an addressbook with an email

If someone want to send just one address from his AddressBook to an email Address there is only the way to export all his address files and then to insert it as attachment to the mail. would be nice if we just could move it from the AddressBook to the "write" window.

UPDATE The contacts sidebar extension written by Jeroen Peeters already provides this functionality. This extension displays the addressbook within the sidebar of the main Thunderbird view in the bottom left. In the context menu of a contact "Joe Doe" you get the option "Forward Contact" which creates a new mail with a Joe.Doe.vcf attached and message title "Contact information for Joe Doe". I think this extension deserves to be included in Core Thunderbird (it's only 39Kb), and provides an option to enable/disable this feature. --Demeester roel 02:50, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Link between message and reply

Please add support for jumping from a mail message to its answer (could be done by searching into the Sent folder for a second message that refers to the first). I've seen this feature in Sylpheed-Claws. UrliMancati 3 Mar 2006

Comment: The ReplySearch extension allows you to do just this: look up all related messages, either by Message-ID or by subject and sender. -- vor0nwe 09:29, 2 November 2006 (PST)

Comment: ReplySearch is very interesting. It works by opening a search dialog and filling it with a message identification that is likely to be unique but will be carried over in replies or forwards. The only problem is that there are no customizable preferences and that the filling in of the search dialog is slow. It would be great if the search could be done without a dialog and only pop-up a list of results. This is the only feature I'm missing from the days I was using Outlook Express. Hopefully, a better ReplySearch will bring us this very useful tool in an easy to use and quick form.

New message starting from a template

Actually, we can create a new message (blank) or open a template message then modify it. Please, ask the user which template start to use (if any template exists). --Antonio 07:53, 24 April 2006 (PDT)

Label button in toolbar

As the Mark button appears in the toolbar, is it possible to add the ability to display the (new) Label button?

Please, let users customize the foreground appearance of message labels, not only the background: for readibility purposes this can be better in some cases. --Antonio 07:53, 24 April 2006 (PDT)

Real line-wrapping for Compose editor

The automatic line wrapping feature (text mode) inside the compose editor is wrapping the lines only for the edit view. The email is still delivered with single line per paragraph. This may be quite annoying for users of different emailers. A check-box option in the text edit preferences should cause inserting real new-lines at the line-wrap boundary before sending. --Darko

I agree. --Ptah 09:54, 5 December 2006 (PST)

This sounds like bug 86607, you can disable mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed as a workaround. I agree to the extent that a better control on flowed format should be given both for display and composition, especially given that other mail clients don't follow RFC3676, but in general its a good feature to allow the displaying e-mail client to match the display to the respective window width. There are certainly use cases where you want preformatted lines. --Rsx11m

Real line-wrapping for Message viewer

When viewing a message that contains quoted long lines that are wrapped, the wrapping algorithm should maintain the quoting level of the line for the wrapped parts too. EG, instead of :

> very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very
very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very
very long line

it should be :

> very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very
> very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very
> very long line

Make the "Down Arrow" proportionate with the tool button

I frequently use the "Down Arrow" next to the "Get Mail" tool button, but it is too small. Please make it wider. - By Ponnuchamy, June 2006

More Options to send later (Future delivery)

I wish to send an email on a particular future date. I type an email and choose "Send later", then it should ask me to choose from the available options like "Send when i go online", "Send on next restart", "Send on a Future date" - there i can choose a date. - By Ponnuchamy on Sep 12, 2006

I second that request. It would be very useful, but I'd add a feature where you can cancel the message before that future date. Those messages to be sent on a future date would be in a seperate folder from Sent and could be canceled before they send. After sending they'd move to regular sent messages. Sorry I can't help implement but I can't program for nada. THANKS! - DCD 10/20/2006

I would be happy if someone simply updated the Send Later Add-on to be compatible with Thunderbird 3. This add-on worked great with Thunderbird 2, and it's my #1 regret about upgrading to version 3.  :-( --Inputjunkie 08:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Take over some very interesting features from Opera M2 Mail

Filter mail instead of searching it

Searching mail is taken very seriously in Opera m2 (even Gmail can learn from it). In fact all email is indexed upon receival which allows "immediate" searches/filters to be performed. Think of this as the way how iTunes Browse Panel functions. Click on an Artist and your songlist is immediately filtered to that Artist. In Opera.. click on a contact and ALL your emails are immediately filtered to all conversations (from/to) that contact.

Search over all folders

The above type of filtering is performed over ALL folders and the UI is provided by some extra nodes within an account.

• labels : displays a list of label (important, todo,...) followed by (X) where X is the number of NEW emails having this label
• contacts : displays all (or only the most active) contacts. Selecting any of these will filter all email to/from the contact. Did i say already note that the search is performed over ALL folders. So your conversation really show up in the threaded view even if the separate mails are in different folders (eg. inbox and sent)
• Searches : You can still defined your own search folders (like thunderbird currently does) but they are grouped in a "searches" node
• Attachement : displays a list of attachement types (Documents, Images, Video, Music, Archives) followed by (X) where X is the number of NEW emails having this type of attachement

more info available from this screenshot on flickr. (it has attached notes to explain the above features)

--Demeester roel 03:26, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Forgotten attachment prompt

It'd be great if Thunderbird could scan the body of an outgoing email for certain keywords such as 'attachment or attached' to prompt the user for a forgotten attachment. Everybody makes the mistake of forgetting to attach a file to their email. The keywords could be variable or related to a locale and, of course, the function could be optional. This should be quite simple to implement. --Blundeln 01:55, 28 September 2006 (PDT)

Comment: I agree with this feature! Should be easy to implement and referred as a feature no other client (to my current knowledge) includes! ;)

Comment: the AttachmentRemember extension takes care of this. -- vor0nwe 08:41, 2 November 2006 (PST)

Comment: This is bug 35601.--C960657 14:22, 13 May 2008 (PDT)

Comment: Thunderbird has implemented help to prevent this in 2009-09

Import individual .vcf file

In my work environment, there are two habits people have for sending contact information: As a big chunk of Signature text, or as an attached .vcf file. I'd love to be able to use Thunderbird to just open a .vcf file and have it be added to the address book. I saw a howto on doing this in Windows, but it seems like too much work to have to fire up Outlook (which some people may not even have), import the .vcf, export the contact info, and then go through the Thunderbird import. The time trade-off may make it easier to just type in the card info. by hand.

--Loup-Vert 09:49, 7 October 2006 (PDT)

Did some searching after I read your request, and came up with this extension: http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html. Enjoy it, I know I do!

--Pjotrovitz 01:31, 24 October 2006 (PDT)

Run message filters on startup/shutdown

I would like to ability to run message filters specified folders at startup/shutdown. That way I can automatically archive old emails into an archive folder when they are older than n days (makes for faster searching/sorting of my inbox), or anything else you can do with a filter. For corporate use, having the ability to move old emails to an archive folder who's data is stored on a remote server that gets backed up every night would help sell Thunderbird to small-medium offices that either don't host their own mail server, or don't use IMAP. It can also be used for people who want to read all their new email in the inbox but want to file them away in separate folders when they are done, too many people do this manually today. --MHall

Various Calendar views on the main window

I would like to see an option to view several months in one window. The options may be to "view year", "view 6 months (semi-annual year), "view 4 months (quarterly)", "view from month/year to month/year". These options will be very helpful for planning purposes like choosing travel dates and to answer questions like: what day is xx? How many weeks from xx/19xx to xx/19xx? --SeshuP

A Mail Archiving Facility in Mozilla Thunderbird

A Mail Archiving facility where in the mail is stored in another seperate database is a very much required feature as this will help in preserving mails for longer period.

• This Archive database should be created in the location as specified by the user.
• This database (preferably) be a single file (file system file) so that it can be easily moved to a different location / machine etc.

Possible implementation

As a extension, if this cannot be a part of the main thunderbird.

How will users use this

• User will have to first create a "Archive Mail Database" from thte file menu options.
  • When Creating she will have to give a provide the file system location for creating the archive (system may prompt with a default location)
  • The user has to provide with a physical file system name
  • and a logical name (which will be referenced within the thunderbird application)
• the User will select a mail to be archived i.e right click (or from the menu options) and choose the option called archive. This action will remove the mail from the current folder/inbox and move it to the archive database.
• Users can open the archive database either thru the menu options or through the tree view on the left hand side, which shows the archive database.

Likely usage

• Archiving mails on a year on year basis for auditing purposes.
• To back up the mails
• For any other purpose the user wants it for.

Advantages

• Seperate Mail Database with same security features, so reducing the load on the inbox (especially if you get tonnes of emails and you have to store them all)
• Can act as a Backup

--Natarajan 09:01, 21 October 2006 (IST - Indian Standard Time)

HTML/Text/Source

• I set my default to send/forward text emails only which is what i want 99% of the time. It is inconvenient however on the odd occasion when i want to actually forward an HTML message. I have to change my preference, send the email, then go back and revert my preference. I suggest adding in the Message->Forward As menu:
  • Forward As HTML (in case default is set to text)
  • Forward As Text (in case default is set to HTML)
• In email reader window, have three tabs:
  • HTML rendered output of HTML email
  • Text version of email
  • Source of entire email including headers (ie same as view source)

Note about the comment below: This does not address *READING* email messages. Sometimes people just want to be able to copy the entire email into a text file. Currently the header of the email is not even copyable all at once; if you want to copy it, as far as I can tell, you have to copy it one line at a time. And you certainly can't copy the header info as well as the body at the same time.

Comment:

• There is still no Shift Forward option for forwarding in HTML when the default is set to plain text composition. This is inconsistent and should really be implemented.
• Pressing Shift while clicking the Write, or Reply, or Forward buttons opens the Compose window in the opposite mode to the default settings. So if you set your default to send text emails, you'll get the new/reply/forwarded message in HTML mode, or vice-versa.
• the EditHTML extension allows you to edit the full HTML source.
• I agree that it would be very nice to have a possibility to edit the full e-mail source. Extension, anyone? ;-)

-- vor0nwe 09:42, 2 November 2006 (PST)

collapse messages automatically and link threads (messages) in-line

Currently every message and replies to it are generating extremely long trains of unwanted quotations. How about replacing the quotes with an individual code (i.e. containing the from +to + date) for the original message and replacing this by a link to the message as soon as the link is received. Optionally unfold all messages that are linked to each other. Offer to link other messages manually (not from within the thread) by drag'n drop --BoP 07:19, 24 February 2007 (PST)

HTML/Plain text switch

The first mentioned ability to switch to HTML from plain text quickly would be a real help. The scenario:

• I start to write a message (in plain text)
• I remember after a page that I need to put a table or something in the message
• I open the account settings and change to HTML
• I open a new message window
• then I copy and paste the previous text and continue to work in HTML.

There should be a switch in the Toolbar that would switch the whole (already half written) message to HMTL.

Update "Compact Folders" to only change folders containing deleted messages

In the current version (1.5.0.7), Compact Folders causes each mail folder to be processed (and re-written), no matter if it contains deleted messages or not. Especially for set-ups with many and/or large e-mail folders, the proposed change would considerably speed up execution of the Compact Folders command. It would also enable incremental backups of e-mail accounts (i.e. backups in which only the folders that have changed are added to the archive).

Import image attachments into F-Spot or other photo album software

The attachment context menu could include an option "import into F-Spot" (or some other photo album software). For novice users saving into a directory, opening F-Spot, finding the import function and navigating to the same directory is an unnecessarily difficult task.

Run shell command for attachments

A "send attachments to shell script" or "run command for attachments" menu option could run a selected shell script or command line with the paths of the attached images in the temporary directory as extra arguments.

Multiple item clipboard

A clipboard for both Firefox and Thunderbird that, like MS Word, stores multiple clippings. It would also be nice if the clippings were integrated with bookmarks .

Read in plain text

It's way too hard to configure Thunderbird to read messages in plain text only, especially considering Outlook Express allows you to do (more or less) the same thing by checking one box. Just read how hard it is to do this in Thunderbird: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Using_Plain_Text#Reading_e-mail_in_plain_text

Message Filter to save attachments to a directory based on sender's adddress

Add filter action "Save attachments to disk directory" based on sender's address.

Suggest folder as based on the domain/user part of the sender's address by truncating common domain suffixes like .com, .org, .com.ua, etc. and

Let the user select the disk directory to save attachments to

Use case:

 message:
 From: user@example.com

Create filter from message:

Action:

 save attachments to disk: 
 folder: c:\attachments\example\user
 Save to: select folder

I would like to second this request,and add to it. It would be great if when creating a new entry in the address book if I could also create a filter at the same time (ie add a line for a filter within the address book entry). (a little less clicking.....)

Copy the sent message but not the attachment

A common configuration is to place a copy of every sent message with its attachments in Sent folder. In order to save mailbox storage space it would be interesting to allow the user to tell that the attachment is not to be saved. It could be a global setting and a per message option. This way the user may decide the default behavior (save or not to save attachments) and may override this default on every message. This could be an option in the compose Options menu. It would be nice to always save the message and only sometimes to save the attachment.

Connection failure alert box

On Windows, each time Tb tries to connect to the mail server but no connection is available an alert box pops up, even if Tb has no focus or is minimized: give the user the ability to suppress those alerts (and maybe add the ability to alert the user somehow else: such as an icon in the tray) More info: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=512469

VCFfile support and synchronisation

I am now using this extension to import single VCF files into the Thunderbird address book. It would be better if Thunderbird could be defined as the default application for handling VCF files to eliminate the manual import/export step.

The basic challenge is to set up address synchronisation across Thunderbird, webmail (such as Gmail) and mobile devices such as PDAs and/or mobile phones. I have a Palm T5, a Sony Ericsson K608i and use Thunderbird and Gmail. There is no easy way to keep addresses in sync, which is frustrating. Synchronisation is an increasingly important feature for many users.

Exactly my problem - I even have the same combination PDA, Sony Ericsson, Thunderbird and GMail. Would be a great help for using Thunderbird in a working environment. This would also be an important argument for use over Outlook. Then I have only to find an alternative to PowerPoint and my PC is free. Cheers, --Gego 02:30, 23 June 2007 (PDT)

Filter Extension - Archive - Synchronization

The Thunderbird Filters are sorely neglected as a valuable tool. Features like opening external programs, saving individual emails as txt with an automated syntax (Subject_<subject> _ Date _ <date>.<extension>) and in general allow more end user customization would be a great help and should be added as a core feature.

This feature could be used to extract emails for Archiving and easy synchronization purposes. --Gego 02:28, 23 June 2007 (PDT)

• AutoSave xpi from ausdilecce (only manual export
• Links zu Forum-Thread

Copy email address functionality from addressbook

I often need to use request tracking software that does not integrate with Thunderbird's addressbook. I then need to mail people that are listed in my Thunderbird addressbook, and find it annoying that I can't simply right click on the name and copy the address. I'm sure this will be trivial to add, so it would be nice if some benevolent dev could add the functionality. Cheers!

Reply to self should put original recipient in To: field

When I reply to my own message in Thunderbird, it puts me in both the From: and To: fields. Instead, Thunderbird should do like Pine does when replying to a message From: yourself, and put the original recipient (from the To: field on the message being replied to) into the To: field of the reply.

Protect or Lock emails

Feature request for a feature to "protect" emails from being deleted. Some quick way to lock the domain so that an extra step (unlocking or unprotect) would be necessary to delete it. This would give you the option to come back to revisit important emails without fear of accidental loss.

Recommended processes:

A. Select email and then click MESSAGE > MARK > "As Protected"

B. Right click message > MARK > "As Protected"

Reverse: "As Unprotected"

Alternate: "As Locked"/"As Unlocked"

Such feature is available since the 1990's at the Pegasus Mail.

search/filter for the folder panel

Feature request for a search/filter in the folder panel.

When dealing with (too) many folders, the ability of displaying only folders matching a pattern could be convenient.

Recommended:

A search/filter input near the folder panel switching arrows.

As you tip a filter pattern, the view of the panel will display only matching folders.

General addressbook enhancement

Feature request for a better addressbook.

There is no field for birthday. The number of email addresses are restricted to two addresses. The number of telephone numbers are restricted to four addresses. Other Applications like Evolution and Outlook have an better Addressbook with much more fields and possibilities

Make filters atomic (transaction like)

Right now there are some problems when a filter encounters a busy folder. (For example on an IMAP account, a filter moving a messages and copying them at the same time causes the copying to fail.)

Major Usability Redesign of Folders & Threads (in 4 Steps)

Step 1: Combined Sender/Receiver Column

Problem: Currently, in each custom mail folder there is a column for the sender of the message. For outgoing messages this is always your name. But you can't see the receiver! (Sure you can display the column for the receiver, but the result are two redundant columns with only one information, since in one of the two is always your own name).

Proposed Improvement: Combine the sender and receiver columns to one "who" column. This column would always show the other person's name, and never your own. To differentiate between incoming and outgoing messages, use emphasis (e.g. print outgoing messages in italics) and/or prefix outgoing messages with boldface/italics "To: " and/or use another (small) column showing an icon. Best solution, of course, would be to let the user select the way of emphasizing (italics, color, icon(s), etc.).

This was already filed as: Bug 36489 (for SeaMonkey), Bug 274232 (for Thunderbird), and Bug 359270 (for Penelope, the Mozilla follow-up to Eudora) and is related to Folder Personalization and Control (second point).

This step is, by and large, resolved with the extension Show InOut. So my suggestion is to include this extension's functionality into Thunderbird and set it as the default behavior.

Step 2: Combined "Unsent Messages", "Drafts" and "Sent" Folder

Problem: Currently, the folders "Unsent Messages" and "Drafts" are (almost) empty for (almost) all users (almost) all of the time. The purpose of having three different outgoing folders (Unsent Messages, Drafts, Sent) is only to differentiate between the status of the mail.

This has already been filed as Bug 197228 and was suggested for Thunderbird 2.0: UI Liftup and stuff (point 5.)

Proposed Improvement: Combine these three folders to one "Out" folder. And show the status of the message by using emphasis (bold face for messages not yet sent) and/or a (small) column showing a status icon.

Rationale: From a logical point of view, an outgoing message not yet sent is equivalent to an incoming message not yet read. But only the latter are displayed in bold face in one combined "Inbox" folder (containing read messages as well as unread messages). So why not use the same simple system for outgoing as well?

Note: By using different status icons, you could easily differentiate between sent drafts, unsent-but-saved drafts, messages ready to be sent, messages whose sending failed, etc., as suggested for Thunderbird 2.0: Differentiate between sent and unsent-but-saved drafts

Step 3: Combined "In" and "Out" Folder

Problem: Currently, if a user sticks with the default folders "Inbox" and "Sent", incoming and outgoing messages are strictly separated. But if the user creates custom folders, they contain both incoming and outgoing messages. This is inconsistent.

Proposed Improvement: Combine the folders "Inbox" and "Out" (from Step 2) to one "Main" folder. The differentiation between incoming and outgoing messages is achieved through emhpasis (e.g. italics, see Step 1). And the differentiation between sent and unsent is achieved through bold face (or icon, see Step 2).

Rationale: Any custom folder is a combined incoming/outgoing folder. Why shouldn't this system work for the program's default folders too?

Related is Bug 301084 which requests the option to automatically store replies in the same folder in which the original message is stored in. I'm suggesting the same thing for the default In/Out folders too.

This step can be achieved by applying this setting:
Tools > Account Settings > Copies & Folders > Place a copy in: > Other: > Local Folders > Inbox.
So my suggestion is to set this as the default behavior (plus rename "Inbox" to "Main").

Step 4: Threading/Grouping of Messages

Rationale: Most email communication is threaded: I write a message, I receive a reply, I reply again, and so on. Single messages are the exception, not the rule.

Problem: Currently, threaded messages are treated as exceptions. The message grouping function is ridiculous & unusable.

Proposed Improvements: See these three suggestions for Thunderbird 2.0:
Improved sorting and grouping of messages (points 1. through 4.)
sorting messages by subject (as thread) (points (1) through (3))
UI Liftup and stuff (point 4.).
Plus this one here:
Feature Request: Editing SUBJECT of received messages

In short: The entire system should work as the folder tree in Windows Explorer: Expand&collapse threads, drag&drop messages, rename subject, and so on.

I list this as Step 4 here because to me such a grouping/threading feature only makes sense if it encompasses incoming as well as outgoing messages. There's no point in having "parallel" threads in the folders "Inbox" and "Sent".

--ThomasLandauer 07 July 2007

Hey Thomas -- have you put all this information about UI and usage overhaul together? This is not less than MIND-BOGGLING, and should get as much community attention as possible.

This is especially valid for the part:

The entire system should work as the folder tree in Windows Explorer: Expand&collapse threads, drag&drop messages, rename, and so on.

Your above steps 1 through 4 actually are a complete revolution and redefinition of what an e-mail client actually should do. I KNOW that one day every proper e-mail client will be acting exactly like this (because mine, and probably yours as well, does already; and since this is like "the invention of the wheel" to me ;).

Although your article possibly points a long way into the future of e-mail, I hope that it won't take like 5 to 10 years to accomplish these fantastic features...

May I finally add my screenshot visualizing some of your proposals already below?

Folder Properties (Retention Policy): Option to ignore tagged and flagged mails for deletion !

I use thunderbird folders for organizing mails. I have also set the retention policy for all the folders, as delete older than XXX days. However, i do not want the tagged mails to be deleted. Since the amount of incoming mail is huge, I cannot also disable this delete operation. Current solution is to move mails to a different folder but that would remove the organization i had done earlier.

Can we please have an option in retention policy to ignore tagged mails?

Filter Grouping

I receive a significant amount of email, and use a large number of filters to administer those emails. I am forever enabling and disabling filters (as many as 50 or more at a time), and would really enjoy a grouping mechanism for filters (specifically for enabling and disabling groups of filters at a time).

Is or Is Not Blank/Empty Search, Filter, and View Options

It would be great (and hopefully simple to add) if we could have filter/view options that supported "is blank/empty" or "is not blank/empty." That way it would be easy to create a filter to show all untagged messages for instance. Created bug 435477 for this.

Quick Search/Filter

• Add "To" to the default so that it reads and works for "Subject, From, or To".

Filter logical operators

I deal with quite a few emails that I need to forward to others where I work. I have devised a collection of filters that will do this for me. I have 26 filters because I can not have these conditions and this or this or this do this. If you could add logical operators between items on the filter we could make complex program style filters.

Operators such as

AND, OR, NOT, NOR, NAND, XOR, IF-END, FLAG(n)

EXAMPLE:

in the filters side

filter - subject contains bug report AND filter - subject contains website FLAG=1 OR filter - subject contains software FLAG=2

filter responses

mark read IF FLAG=1 forward - someone@techservices.com reply with template - template1 IF FLAG=2 forward - someone.else@techservices.com reply with template - template1 END move - archive

Filter assigned to specific folders

Having filters that can be assigned to specific folders would be a big plus. I have a few folders that need to be checked by me every couple of days. One thing I could implement with a folder filter would be auto sending a "how things are going for you?" follow up email. I work in tech support. This would be a valuable tool for many users of the best email client out there.

Variables for email templates

I've become quite accustomed to using QuickText. I can see TB3 benefiting from having the ability to have variable included in a template email that will autopopulate when the template is loaded to mail.

E-Mail Templates for Replies

I'd liek to see the use of templates for replies. I think that is the most important use of templates. Because, I want to shoot of a standard (FAQ) type of reply more often, then I want to write those as e-mails from scratch. --Conficio 12:20, 12 June 2008 (PDT) All kinds of templates are important. In The Bat you have templates for folders, address book contacts, address book groups and these templates are diffent for "new mails", "forwarded mails" and "replied mails" Additionaly you have templates for saveing & printig emails and for reading confirmations. The templates are supporting a huge list of macros The hole template concept combined with filtering is extremly powerfull. Cakruege 09:17, 15 June 2008 (PDT)

Addressbook improvements

== Allow batch BCC rather than one click for each addendum. Eudora allows that in V7. Also why not nicknames in address book --[[User:chuckm4689

Search in all addressbooks

Let me search through all addressbooks at once, rather than in only one. I have multiple addressbooks for multiple roles I'm present in, such as private, running club, consulting client, business. I'd like to search them all with one request. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

I'd like to add my vote for this one- it's one of my biggest dissatisfactions with TBird. Perhaps if the address book tree structure were modified to have a 'root'/highest level, this could be accomplished easily. (make the address book a directory /subdirectory structure and allow us access to the highest level. then make search like 'Windows search'- by directory )

I had wished that the 'searched for' text would not automatically be deleted when changing address books, to facilitate searching multiple books, but Conficio's solution is more elegant. VWFeature

Tag Addressbook entries

As one can tag e-mails, I'd like to tag my addressbook entries. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Consolidate entries across addressbooks

Allow links between entries that are in different addressbooks, but for the same person. I'd need this, so I can track people that do have more than just the traditional roles of work and home, but may be other functions in organizations, etc. See from another stand point, allow n numbers of postal addresses and n number of e-mails addresses attached with a role, such as personal/mobile or work at xyz corp, etc. This could also be achieved by tags or even stronger a hierarchical taxonomy (Look at what Drupal has done there). That way even organizational structures could be worked out in the addressbook. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Support function E-Mail's better

I'd like to have a better way to track functions (as opposed to individual persons), such as support at XYZ Inc., with (shipping) Address, phone, fax and e-mail. Currently such entries show nothing in the search list or are not used in the e-mail from, etc. (unless I use the name fields for the function role, which is not a good solution). --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Extended search filters

... for company, town, phone number, and many more fields. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Free tagging of e-mail

Let me define tags in any way I want and give me a tag cloud to select those e-mails. This would also be useful for addressbook entries, as well as for calendar entries (Lightning). --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Support Multi Account/Multi Role

I use Thunderbird wtih ~5 different e-mail accounts. I'd like to see better control over what I see and how I manage those roles/accounts. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Tabbed Interface per Account

The current list of all accounts on the side is not very useful, when I have in each account (RSS, News, ...) lots of subfolders. I'm forced to close and open hierarchies of folders jsut to keep track of it. And scrolling does prevents me from seeing at a glance which account has new e-mail. I'd love to have color coded tabs for each account with some essential status (new-mail, etc) on the tab. This could also be an accordion interface, if color coded. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Color coded reply window

Expanding on the color coded accounts/tabs I'd like to see that the reply window or the message create window does follow this color coding. That way I can be more alert, which e-mail I'm writing in which roel adn from which account. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Control off-line work per account

I'd like to control the on-off-line status per account. Sometimes I have to work with my laptop in a separate network that is closed off from the rest of the Internet or in a VPS. In those cases Thunderbird does keeps reminding me with all sorts of can't reach ... messages, etc. I think this could be improved, by allowing me to switch separate accounts on and off line so I could still read my RSS and news, while the corporate e-mail account would be off-line and I can write e-mails for documentation purposes and send them as soon as I'll be online again. --Conficio 12:17, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Collapsible file browser sidebar for attachments

I use lots of images in my emails and attach PDF guides to our product. Having a sidebar that can be opened on the right side of the compose window under the attachments box would be of great help. I've tried MailTagger which doesn't quite cut it. A sidebar that can display the folder tree of a particular drive that also offers thumbnails of images to drag into a message.

Jump to message with keyboard

When sorting messages by clicking on a column header (like 'sender' or 'subject'), it would be nice that you can jump to senders or subjects starting with the letter 'T' (-or any other letter-) by pressing the T on your keyboard (-or any other key-).

Basic Drag&Drop Function

Please let me drag&drop E-Mails from Thundbird to my Desktop, and vice versa. -- 21. Nov. 2008'

Thunderbird 3: Finally it works - thank you! -- 09. Dec. 2009

Pasting images

Make pasting images a closs platform feature. At the moment it only seems to work under Windows. -- 26 Nov 2008

This is fixed and should work on all major platforms for 3.0b1, with a choice of pasting in PNG (new default) or JPEG formats, GIF where supported. See bug 344248 and its dependencies. --Rsx11m

Queue actions on exclusively locked folders

When a folder is locked (by compaction for example) and you try and perform an action it's contents (such as deleting a message) the user currently gets a message like "unable to perform this action because another process is using the folder". I would like to see Thunderbird remember the action (and any others) that occurs on a locked folder and execute them once the folder is unlocked and tell the user it is going to do this or update the UI to reflect the queued action (even though it's still pending) --ChromeAngel

Condense multiple "Unable to connect to server" modal dialogs

When multiple incoming mail servers are configured and Thunderbird checks for new mail without a network connection available Thunderbird currently tries (and fails) to connect to them one after the other and queues a series of modal dialogs along the lines of "Unable to connect to server <servername>". With many mail accounts and many server clicking this dialogs away can be tedious. Can these messages please be condensed into a single dialog along the lines of "Unable to connect to the following server(s) : <servername> ..." --ChromeAngel

Improve Message Filter dialog

The current message filter facility is very limited for heavy usage. I make message filter for every e-mail that I get, for which I think I may get more from the same address. Because I am a project manager I am member of many mailing lists and have many and over time changing contacts. Over the years I made about 500 or 600 rules (hard to count). The following points illustrate the limitations that I experience and possible solutions for it:

Problem When I get a new contact within the project I make a new filter to place mails from that contact in a new subfolder of the  "project persons" folder that I made for that contact. But if that contact sends e-mails to one of the project mailing lists I want the mailing list message filter to take precedence. Currently, a new filter gets placed at the top of all existing message filters and I have to click the down button for 400 times to place the new contacts filter below all mailing list filters. Recently, I got 4 new contacts, which meant 1600 mouse clicks, because you can only move one filter at a time. The other option I currently have would be to move all mailing list filters to the top. But as I can only move one filter at a time this means moving 30 filters (for the 30 mailing lists) every time I happen to add a new filter.

A number of possible solutions 1) Give new filters the lowest precedence instead of the highest, 2) Allow moving more than one filter at a time, 3) make a list of preferent filters that always get precedence before anything else, while default filters have no preferent order, 4) provide a grouping facility for filters and give precedence options to the whole group, 5) make an option that can automatically finds all filters that have the same assigned actions (typically moving to a specific folder) and replace these filters by one equivalent combined filter. This can help to restrict the growth of the total number of filters.

Another solution: Allow drag-n-drop of filters in order to move them up/down the list would be a solution. If the filter groups idea gets implemented, also allow drag-n-drop filter(s) in/out of a filter group.

Another nice idea is to implement if/then/else/case of and regular expressions support for filter tokens.

Problem I have made folders for e-mails of certain categories, like "ads", "client",  "insurance contact",  "auditing contact" and made associate filters. I see contacts leave and new contacts arrive all the time. However, old filters that are never applied always remain in my filter list, and I cannot easily find out which of the filters are redundant and which aren't.

Solution Count how often a filter is applied and when it was applied for the last time. Give an overview of this data in the filter list. When I can sort my list of filters like that I can very quickly see which filters are probably redundant and delete them, so that my filter list doesn't grow out of control. --Ksluijs 9:44, 17 September 2009 (GMT)

Calendar (Lightning) Store Data to Prevent Reloading

The fact that Lightning is constantly reloading Google calendars is an annoyance in the Today Pane and in the Calendar. There has to be a way to store enough data so that the reminders are not constantly re-opening and the data does not disappear and reappear.

RSS messages open into browser

Rather than opening RSS messages in Thunderbird's limited browser, provide options to open them or their link to the main article with the system default web browser.

Email list functionality

It would be great to have some subscribe(?)/unsubscribe/help/etc functionality in Thunderbird. Often, the required information/addresses are in the message headers, and I guess there's not so many different types of list managers. It would make it easier for people to unsubscribe and, if the options are made obvious, also reduce the number of silly 'unsubscribe' messages sent to everyone on the list.

Ease use of plus-addresses

I subscribe to several lists and web sites using plus addressing, and it is next to impossible to use Thunderbird compose window since it doesn't allow you to edit the 'From'. In the case of replying to a message, perhaps it could be even smarted and detect the correct 'from' address from the original email's headers.

Customizable senderCol

I would like to customize the senderCol in Thunderbird. It would be nice to choose betwenn the standard view (See the name out of the header) and only display the E-Mail adress. It would also be nice to have the option to activate a feature that when the adress view is activated, it display the name out of the adressbook if an entry exists to the given E-Mail adress.

GNOME/KDE email notification applet

It would be great to tray thunderbird to a panel applet fetching emails for multiple mail accounts and notifying new arrivals. Something similar to mail-notification applet by Jean-Yves Lefort (http://www.nongnu.org/mailnotify/)

Message Filtering rules - allow relative timestamps as date

In addition to before or after a certain date, it would be useful, and probably quite easy to implement a relative date. This would allow one to have an archive folder for messages more than X days old. This could also flag messages from the far future or distant past as dubious.

View star-ed/flagged message

It would be helpful if thunderbird provided a "Flagged" category in the left pane under "Inbox", "Sent", "Draft". This can show all the flagged messages from all folders. Right now you need to visit all folders to see the flagged messages in them.

You can still do that with the 'Save as Search Folder' feature. Simply save a search with your filters (telling it which (sub)folders it should be looking in) as a folder.

PS: If my workaround solution serves your cause, please consider deleting your request so we don't clutter this page. Thanx

Show warning when making To vs BCC mistake

It would be helpful if Thunderbird would show a warning popup if your sending a mail to more then X recipients in the 'To' field. Its a common mistake to sent mail to lots of people in the 'To' field instead of the 'BCC' field.

A simple warning dialog could help people from making this mistake which can have negative consequences.

Better Integration with ldap address book server

It might be helpful to have an interface to show address book entries from a ldap server, and not only autocompleting from this type of server. The ldap contacts sidebar bar (http://extensions.sanjer.nl/?page=tb_cs) look a very good example to follow but it doesn't work very well with thunderbird 3 (it works ok with thunderbird 2).

Clickable URLs in email subject area

It would be useful to make URLs clickable in the subject field of the middle right panel. Currently any URL in this area must be highlighted with the mouse and then copied and pasted into a browser.

Improved user Interface for S/Mime signing / encryption

Currently encryption and signing using S/Mime is preset by checkboxes of the drop-down menue "S/Mime". Much better would be an automatic setting in the following way:

- The checkboxes are visible somewhere in the header area of the composer window.

- Both may be changed by the sender as already now the "hidden" checkboxes.

The main point is default presetting:

- "sign" is on if the sender owns a valid certificate (otherwise S/Mime does not make sense anyway).

- "encrypt" is on if a certificate of the addressee is found in the local certificate store, otherwise off.

The sender can unset "sign" or "encrypt" of course if he/she wants to. This is the way the Apple mail tool works, I was told. (they use gray vs black symbols for signing/encryption in their user interface) The BIG advantage is, that the sender will not be bothered by error messages, if an addresse's certificate is not known. This will make end-to-end encryption easier and hopefully more widespread.

The software change should be pretty easy: Simply check if the addressee has a certificate in the local store as soon as her/his address has been typed in, and show the check boxes (or symbols) for signing / encrytion accordingly.

Integrate 'Search Message...' window into the main UI + Add button for quick toggling between folder view and search view + Extend features [bug 1102861]

Enhancement request filed as bug 1102861

Graphic mockups

• thunderbird-advanced-search-integration-into-main-ui.png (Integrated "Search Messages..." in Main UI)

• thunderbird-advanced-search-integration-into-main-ui2.png (Toggle button for quick access)

Description

Ideally the 'Search messages...' feature shall open directly in the main UI (simply integrate the current separate window console into main ui). Buttons could allow fast switching between 'Folder' view and 'Search Messages...' view. See more details in attachment (graphic mockup).

By default

All feature available in 'Folder' view feature shall be made available in the 'Search messages...' view for similar manipulation of search results, for example:

• allow quick filtering of search result by adding the quick filter toolbar (same feature as available for folder message list eg starred messages, msg with attachments, etc...).

• allow classification by attachments (column header), etc...

• allow preview of search results messages in a preview pane

• allow action on message opened in preview pane (eg: reply among others...)

• allow drag/drop of message from search result into sub-folders

In addition

• layout the search result columns as per the default Inbox folder layout as set by end-user preferences.

• add additional action buttons to allow search in new tab or new windows upon user preference.

• keep main ui search criteria/results until the current running session of Thunderbird ends (application closed).

--Richard Leger 05 December 2014

Tab switching same as Firefox

Under OS X:

• command-{
• command-}

switch between tabs. This works under a number of other apps as well, and is really handy for us keyboard aficionados.

08:55, 10 December 2014 (PST)