Thunderbird:Collected User Requests

Some of these are moved from various discussion pages in the Calendar wiki.

Multiple Addresses on a Line Support

It almost goes without saying: An email client should allow a person to copy a delimited list of email addresses from a text file and paste them onto a line in the email client so that all the email addresses are sent the email you are writing. Storing a single line of such addresses gives the user a sort of ad hoc mailing list. Just about every email client I have ever used had this "feature" and I sorely miss it in Thunderbird. Would it be so hard to parse the text field for a comma- or semicolon-delimited list of email addresses and move addresses after the first one to subsequent "To:" fields when the cursor leaves the textbox?

Incidentally, also might be quite helpful if one could organize contacts such that one can create a mailing list. (I can't say for sure that this feature doesn't exist. I haven't really looked hard for it.)

Enigmail/GnuPG integration

The Engimail extension should be directly integrated into Thunderbird/Mozilla Mail as it is THE most important feature that is still missing.

SPAM protection with digital signatures

Include seamless digital signature management:

• Prioritize signed mail
• Store signatures with address book information
• Identify users upon their e-mail address and verify signature visibly
• Mark successfully identified users (when receiving or writing by checking the address book) in green, no sig. as dark-grey and wrong sig. as red
• No need to filter signed + verified mail from SPAM
• Easily alter trust level (i.e. by clicking the name)

--BoP 07:38, 24 February 2007 (PST)

Flow management + address book integration

Not so much about managing your own identity, but rather about the identity of the others. Usually the user wants to see whom s/he is communicating with. Therefore the user information from the address book should be displayed for all the people involved. (i.e. image + full contact information for a single contact, reduced info, like image only for a group of contacts). Simple grouping of contacts as discussion group: [subject of message+time of start] instead of the full list (which can be unfolded at demand) Display the thread and side threads in an integrated fashion (i.e [image of Brian Pope] "Brian Pope: last contact "Sunbath" two days ago)

--BoP 07:38, 24 February 2007 (PST)

API to display mail

Athough Google desktop is able to do it, there is no clear API to instruct Thunderbird to display a given email stored in its mail box (knowing the folder & message ID)

Visual/Audible notification of new messages

It would make sense to have a thunderbird tray icon which blinks/changes when new messages are available. This way you could immediately know if you�ve got mail.

I know there�s sound notification already, but what if you aren�t in the room at the very moment the mail arrives?
The static tray icon that exists now is only shown when there is new mail waiting.

The animated tray icon is a feature of the Bat! and it is really handy. Of course it would require that Thunderbird can be minimized to tray. Since there is an open source software called TB tray which does that job I think it could be implemented quite easily?

It may also make sense to have the capability to play a configurable sound when a filter has run. This could allow audible notification of higher priority messages and possibly enhance accessibility. (bug 118952)

Running an external program when messages arrive could also help using the "new mail LED" some laptops do have.

First filter then notify

Please let the filters (especially the SPAM-filters) do their job BEFORE the notification is issued. This might not apply to SIGNED & VERIFIED mail! (instant notification with signature symbol)

Korn-style icon

I would second the idea of the animated tray icon, but I would suggest something similar to Korn (included in most Linux distros), as having an applet/daemon (I'm not too savvy with the terms) like that would be very useful for Windows users, and having it integrated with Thunderbird would help Linux users, so they don't need to run Korn.

My recommendation is that it should have customizable notification of new mail (whether to use sound, a popup like 1.5 does, etc; and what information is given to the user- do they want just to know how many new emails, or do they want the first paragraph of the new email?), and customizable user interaction (left click does this, right click does that, etc). Customizability is always a pain, but it is always appreciated.

Ability for filters to suppress or modify the new message alert

I would like the ability to make a filter saying, in effect, "when a new message matches, move it to folder X and do *not* play the sound or display the alert you normally would." This is because often these filters are meant to get messages from high-traffic mailing lists out of the way, to be perused later. It is distracting to have the sound/alert take place for each of them. (bug 11040)

- separate sounds for separate accounts (bug 25183) - mute sound OR notification globally PER account BY -> [folder-rightclick sound-mute or notification-mute - option menu] (bug 104809)

- separate sounds for separate filter rules: ability to choose a sound for each filter rule

CSS for HTML message composition

Composing HTML mail using <font> tags scattered thru the text is just plain awful. The preferred font is easily lost, overridden by the system default; there is no styling applied to quotes, reply headers or sigs. The infrastructure for CSS-based editing is already in place. I guess there needs to be a fix so that the HTML compose preferences are translated into CSS rather than <font> attributes -- and maybe some additional UI for a couple of additional prefs...?

As part of this feature, the message editor needs to (a) allow user to specify a stylesheet and (b) edit the HTML source (<head> as well as <body>).
&#151; Comment: The EditHTML extension enables you to do this. -- vor0nwe 09:10, 2 November 2006 (PST)

Eudora has this and it's the one thing I miss now using Thunderbird; customized (or no) sound based on sender.

Comment: Please beware of the limited CSS support in many webmail clients. --Dikrib 08:11, 9 May 2006 (PDT)

Currently the proper design of an e-mail message is very hard to control and CCS is implemented in a way that it is downward compatible to older browsers (they will ignore it). In case the text is idented or a list is used the complete formatting is blown away (and the spell checker refuses to work properly) and the font settings are set to the basic standard (ignoring the user settings), so that HTML mails get pretty bulky and especially ugly. HTML mail writing support is currently in the stage of the mid 90'ties! The user should have a simple interface to control the output of the displayed messages by altering some CCS options. For sending a message this ccs should be sent with the message. There might even be the option to alter the message styles by selecting them from a wider range. (thus simply generating greeting cards, formal postings, personal...) so that the receiver immediately sees the intention of the message. --BoP 07:19, 24 February 2007 (PST)

Ability to import and export message filters

Thunderbird can�t import or export message filters yet. This was requested in Bug 166842.

LDAP write & IMAP ACL capability

A very important feature that the Mozilla family lacks is write mode LDAP access. Evolution has it and makes creating a shared address book extremely easy. Another gaping hole is lack of ACL manipulation from the GUI.

These two features alone would make workgroup mail management a reality for Mozilla. In any case they are both completions to already present features: LDAP read access is already present and so does IMAP folder ACL parsing (accessible from a tab in the properties context menu of an IMAP folder.

Before attacking calendaring I'd finish off what's half done.

Thunderbird-Sunbird/Lightning for Pocket PC

One of the features I miss the most, when using Thunderbird/Sunbird, is the ability to synchronize my calendar and contacts to my Ipaq running pocket PC 2003. Are you going to develop a Pocket PC port of Lightning (Thunderbird/Sunbird)?

Palm Sync & Pocket PC

I disagree with Adam - I am a power user, not developer. I would like to see sync with Palm, as well as Tasks, etc. I do want TB to replace Outlook. Thank you! Rod

I don't really see Thunderbird as a replacement for Outlook, but rather for Outlook Express - so all I need to be able to sync is the in/out boxes and the contacts database. Adam

The folks over at Sync4j (http://www.sync4j.org ) have an open source product that they say could be used to develop a sync program between Thunderbird and Pocket PC. All they need is some volunteers to help write it. Not being a programmer, all I can do is test it. Does anyone want to have a go at it? Michael

A (hopefully easy) partial temporary solution is for Thunderbird to dynamically export newest emails to a folder. My pocket PC's "my documents" folder syncs with a corresponding folder on my laptop, so if Thunderbird had this feature it could serve as a decent work-around to at least have my emails on-the-go. This way, I wouldn't have to regularly open Outlook except for when I need to access backups of contacts/calendar for my pocket PC. Eugene

A friend of mine just released something like that. It's called BirdieSync (http://www.birdiesync.com) and syncs your contacts, appointments and tasks under Lightning with a PocketPC or a Smartphone. It's a shareware though. Alain.

There is an other tool available, which provides synchronization of Thunderbird's adressbook AND Sunbird's calendar. It's Java based and supports Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Clients are Pocket PC PDAs or SmartPhones using Windows Mobile. It's free. See for details: http://www.finchsync.com

Palm Sync for mail already works on Thunderbird via MAPI, just setup the Palm conduit as you would for Netscape 4.x. I've been using it for a long time, no problem. I believe PocketPC's ActiveSync also uses MAPI so it should be configurable. --Raccettura 15:55, 23 September 2006 (PDT)

WikiSyntax rendering

This is definitely _the_ place to demand for this feature: Make Thunderbird render WikiMarkup in the style of the Mediawiki syntax definition. (maybe just get the rendering sourcecode out of Mediawiki if that's possible) Maybe let the user toggle if Thunderbird should try to detect WikiMarkup automagically or not. --That would be a wonderful feature and we won't have to think if we're wiki-ing or writing an email :) eric.

Better indication when message is high/low priority

Right now there is no easy way of marking a message high or low priority. Not to mention that when I am composing a message and mark it high or low that there is no visual indication in the composition window (OE does do this for example.) It says that "this message is marked high importance" right above the To: and it has a yellow background.

Also for the message list of received mails it would be better to have icons for the priority indication instead of the text. For example a red exclamation mark for high prio mails is more intuitive than the text representation.

Better signature management

Right now Thunderbird depends on a third party file for a signature. This can only lead to trouble in the future (for example a malicious signature that can be attached as a html file.)

Thunderbird should allow us to compose our own signature in Thunderbird. (bug 219197) Not to mention have a different signature for new emails and/or replying to emails, like Outlook has. (bug 73567, bug 226120)

Comment: It would also be nice to be able to provide both a text version and a HTML version of the same signature. Right now, when sending a plain-text message while a HTML signature is specified, the HTML is auto-converted to text, which doesn't always produce the desired result. -- vor0nwe 09:22, 2 November 2006 (PST)

Comment: I second that. Furthermore it might be useful to:

mark (XML encapsule) signatures

so that they can be removed in long threads (they already use the tag:

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)

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)

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 Outlook 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.

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 adressbook with an email

If someone want to send just one adress from his AdressBook to an email Adress there is only the way to export all his adressfiles and then to insert it as attachement to the mail. would be nice if we just could move it from the AdressBook 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 provide 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)

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

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)

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

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)

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:

• pressing Shift while clicking the Write, 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)

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

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 Erricson 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.