Simple, simple, simple -- possible?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Thunderbird
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markfilipak
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Joined: September 27th, 2014, 1:54 pm
Location: Ohio

Simple, simple, simple -- possible?

Post by markfilipak »

Can TBird be configured to operate as follows?

Suppose I send a 1st message to a new friend: Larry (larryfine@heaven.com).
TBird automatically creates a mailbox, '<profilefolder>/Mail/larryfine@heaven.com/', and puts the message there.
Later, TBird puts Larry's response in the 'larryfine@heaven.com' mailbox.
Yes, in the same mailbox.

Suppose Larry's buddy, Curly (curlyhoward@heaven.com), sends me a 1st message.
TBird automatically creates a mailbox, '<profilefolder>/Mail/curlyhoward@heaven.com/', and puts the message there.
TBird puts my response in the 'curlyhoward@heaven.com' mailbox.

No accounts. No identities. Simple.

Can TBird be configured to do that?

(Yes, I know about "Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to". That's not the same. That's not what I want. I want simple, simple, simple.)

The 'larryfine@heaven.com' & 'curlyhoward@heaven.com' mailboxes each have their own SMTP (or default) & POP (or default) & "Reply-To:" header (needed because my SMTP is outgoing only).

Cheers,
Mark Filipak.
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Simple, simple, simple -- possible?

Post by tanstaafl »

No.

Thunderbird has accounts, folders, and identities, not mailboxes. You need to have at least one account in order to send and receive mail. An account has to have at least one identity. "Mailbox" is usually used to either refer to the username portion of an email address (larryfine, postmaster etc.) or to a specific folder on the mail server.

I think you're really asking if Thunderbird can be configured to automatically create a folder in an account based on the senders username (if it doesn't already exist) and move the new message there. No.

Each of the following would use "Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to" to file your reply but use a different way to file the new message/create the folder for it.

* You could create the folders beforehand and use message filters to automatically move new mail to the associated folder.

* Some email providers support using plus addressing (username+some_string@domain.com) to automatically move new mail to the "some_string" folder. I think it depends upon the implementation whether or not it will create the folder for you.

* You might be able to create a script on the server to automatically create the folder and move the message to it if you're using a IMAP account. It depends upon what email provider you use. For example Fastmail supports the Sieve mail filtering language (can do what you want) while many others just support a simple set of filters/rules that don't let you create a folder or get the username from a email address.

* Thunderbird dropped support for movemail accounts around version 78. Movemail would have let you use procmail etc. to filter and store the mail into what is essentially a POP account. You might have been able to find an existing procmail script to do what you want.

* You probably could write some javascript code to work with the FiltaQuilla add-on to automatically create folders as needed and move mail there.

But I'm not aware of a way to do things as simply as you want.
markfilipak
Posts: 141
Joined: September 27th, 2014, 1:54 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Simple, simple, simple -- possible?

Post by markfilipak »

tanstaafl wrote:No. ...
That's what I thought. I hoped there was an add-on that could resculpt TBird.

Centering everything on Accounts makes TBird way more complicated than it could be. Identities and other things are obviously ways to work around the Accounts straightjacket. The Accounts architecture should be dumped.

Way back when, I used Eudora. It was plain and easy. TBird is (overly) complicated and difficult. Result: TBird is full of bugs. I would try BetterBird but it has the same architecture.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Simple, simple, simple -- possible?

Post by tanstaafl »

Eudora 7.1 had you configure a dominant personality, and any additional personalities and accounts were configured in the account settings dialog box. Tomato, Tomatoe, both dealt with accounts and identities.

https://fossies.org/windows/mail/eudora ... Manual.pdf
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