[LINK] RFI: Thunderbird

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Hi Roger,

What are you switching from?

I recently did an upgrade to a new version of thunderbird and stressed 
about nothing to import.

It turns out it is just a matter of copying the files across (including 
address books) and Thunderbird read them.

Ofcourse, I had backups etc. but the key directory for data files is 
gobledegook.default

Marghanita


On 10/10/18 17:17, Roger Clarke wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback on my enquiry about an email-client!
> (I received emails from multiple people, on and off list).
>
> As recommended, I've trialed Thunderbird.
>
> Remaining problems (2) and (3) below I might be able to live with.
>
> But problem (1) is serious, and I can't see how I could cope with it.
>
> Any assistance gratefully received!
>
> ________
>
> (1) Getting access to attachments (THE CURRENT PARTY-STOPPER)
>
>      Thunderbird is just as bad as Apple Mail, in that all attachments
>      are buried in huge, deep-nested directories, still encoded.
>
>      Searches on a known filename don't find it, in either Spotlight or
>      EasyFind. so it's impossible to locate received files!
>      ('Someone sent you a file called squiggle.xyz.  Did you get it?')
>
>      No useful info turned up in the bare-bones documentation, nor from
>      multiple searches in Thunderbird fora.
>
>      An add-on once existed, was broken, and has not been revived.
>
>
>      It requires many wasted keystrokes to get a copy out,
>      and that has to be done inside each and every message.
>      (Find message, open list to see the filenames, double-click to
>      get a pop-up, instruct it to save, select folder;  it's possible
>      to set it to save future files of that filetype with a double-click)
>
>      (Even then it's behaviour is inconsistent.  For jpg, png, pdf, txt
>      and zip, it displays the save-as setting in Preferences/Attachments.
>      *But* for txt, doc, docx, odt and tiff, and perhaps others that I
>      haven't tried, it doesn't show them, but does save them on request).
>   
>      Recovering the wasted storage-space requires much the same again.
>      (Find message, open list to see the filenames, select Save/Delete
>      at bottom-right, click OK).
>
>      Yesterday was a quiet-enough day, but 24 of the non-spam emails
>      I received had attachments that I needed to access and evaluate,
>      and 10 if them I need to be able to find easily by name or directory.
>      That would be 40 clicks to move 10 files + 96 to delete 24 files -
>      not counting the searching for messages.  Everyday, forever.
>
>      All it needs is:
>      -   two nested options in the settings
>          -   copy all incoming attachments to nominated attachments folder
>              -   delete after copying
>      -   a small routine, running on every attachment to every incoming
>          email, that calls functions that are already in the package
>
> (2) Filtering incoming messages into themed mailboxes, and then
>      Knowing which mailboxes contain newly-fetched mail (sort-of okay)
>
>      Thunderbird shows the names of mailboxes in bold if
>      any message, fetched at any time in the past, has not been opened.
>
>      Thunderbird shows the names of mailboxes in bold *and blue* if
>      one or more messages have arrived since the mailbox was last opened.
>
>      *But* a Quit and Restart of Thunderbird loses the vital blue marking
>      (although not the far-less-useful bold marking).
>
>      Admittedly Tbird appears pretty stable and hence may not have to be
>      frequently Quit and Restarted, as the execrable PostBox does.
>
> (3) Importing existing mailboxes (maybe fixable)
>
>      Thunderbird is worse than Apple Mail, in that Tools / Import fails
>      to find Apple Mail mailboxes ('No mailboxes were found to import').
>      Ah, deep down in the documentation it owns up to not importing
>      from later than Apple Mail v5.  It's currently at v10!
>
>      There are no add-ons to support import.
>
>      No useful info turned up in the bare-bones documentation, nor from
>      multiple searches in Thunderbird fora.
>
>      A link correspondent has used and reco's https://www.aid4mail.com/
>
> _________
>

-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
Telephone: 0414-869202
Email:  marghanita at ramin.com.au
Website: http://ramin.com.au