Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

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andokay
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Joined: April 28th, 2022, 3:44 pm

Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by andokay »

Hi everyone,

I have started using Thunderbird yesterday and I managed to mostly make it the way I want it to be (imported all mails and folder with ImportExportTools NG, global inbox and outbox for multiple mail addresses, etc.). However, a few points are still bothering me with TB which I was not able to resolve by searching for it online, so maybe you guys can help me with those.

1.) When an unread e-mail is "deleted" (=moved to the bin) using the DEL key on the keyboard or "rightclick->delete" that e-mail is automatically declared as "read", meaning the bin always shows up as having 0 unread e-mails even though it does contain e-mails that are actually not read but are marked as such. This does not happen when I move the e-mail to the bin via drag & drop (which I never do, I always use the DEL key). So without having the display to show the total amount of mails active (which I don't want to have active) I have no way of knowing whether or not there are e-mails in the bin unless I click it to manually check. I would like unread e-mails that I delete to the bin still be marked as unread.

2.) Also, I would like a quick way to empty the bin - MS e-mail programs has an "(X)" button next to it, for example. Yes, there is rightclick->empty and I have been using that, but a button would be more convenient.

2.) I have not found a convenient and quick way to mark all selected e-mails as read/unread. I can rightclick->mark->read/unread, but that is a lot of steps for something so relevant and there should be a simple toggle UI button somewhere for this like there is in MS e-mail programs.

3.) When I start TB it does not automatically retrieve e-mails from the servers. It shows a short message at the bottom that it did check, but in reality it did not because when I press the button on the top left to retrieve e-mails it actually checks (which takes a lot longer than the 1 second it "checks" after starting the program up). I suspect that this is related to the fact that I use the global inbox instead of having separate inboxes for each e-mail address I use - all of which have the "include this server when..." option enabled of course.

4.) When I receive/send/delete an e-mail the folder order (inbox, sent, bin, outbox) sometimes changes, seemingly randomly. I have not been able to find out exactly what triggers it and why, but it is happening sometimes and it's very strange. I wish there was a way to manually set the folder order and lock it in place.

5.) When using the dark theme (which I prefer) and no e-mail is selected in the upper half then the lower half is white instead of dark. This is a very small detail obviously and it's not breaking any worksflows, but it's a bit annoying nonetheless :).

Those are the points that bother me with TB right now, maybe you guys can help me with some of them :). Thanks in advance
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DanRaisch
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by DanRaisch »

How is the account set up, as POP or IMAP?
In Thunderbird the menu path is Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.
andokay
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Joined: April 28th, 2022, 3:44 pm

Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by andokay »

All my e-mail addresses that I use with TB (as mentioned, there are several ones) use POP3 as I like it that way (mails stay on the server for 14 days before they are deleted, with one exception as it's from a different mail provider where I want all mails to stay on the server in general).
morat
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by morat »

2nd 2.)

Shortcut M - Toggle Selected Messages as Read or Unread

Thunderibrd shortcuts
http://support.mozilla.org/kb/keyboard- ... hunderbird
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tanstaafl
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by tanstaafl »

3. Is "check for new mail on startup" and "check for new mail every "X" minutes" configured in each POP accounts server settings? In general the global inbox just lets "N" POP accounts share the Local Folders pseudo account as their "local directory" (where they store their files) and hides the POP accounts in the folder pane.

The "get messages" button is really a combo list box that defaults to checking for new mail in the currently selected account if you press it. The list box has a "get all new messages" entry followed by entries for each account.

4. I haven't heard of the folder order in the folder pane randomly changing before. Perhaps its due to an add-on you installed that needs updating to be fully compatible with version 91. The manually sort folders add-on at https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/th ... src=search is the normal way to move folders and/or accounts position in the folder pane.

5. What happens with a Dark theme is influenced by whatever Windows theme you use , especially if you're using a Windows Dark theme. If you want to avoid that configure Windows to just use a background image instead of a theme.

There are some Monterail extensions that you might look at that are variations on the Dark theme. They're extensions rather than themes to workaround the dropping of support for complete themes when Mozilla switched from XPCOM/XUL to the WebEXtension API.

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/th ... for-tb-68/
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/th ... ll-dark-2/

6. If you want to keep messages on the server for X days its possible to do that with a IMAP account too. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_aging if you're interested.
Gone Postal
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by Gone Postal »

andokay wrote:2.) Also, I would like a quick way to empty the bin - MS e-mail programs has an "(X)" button next to it, for example. Yes, there is rightclick->empty and I have been using that, but a button would be more convenient.
The Xpunge add-on (https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/th ... on/xpunge/) sorts that out for you. There is a button to add to the toolbar included as part of the add-on.
andokay
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Joined: April 28th, 2022, 3:44 pm

Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by andokay »

morat wrote:2nd 2.)

Shortcut M - Toggle Selected Messages as Read or Unread

Thunderibrd shortcuts
http://support.mozilla.org/kb/keyboard- ... hunderbird
Oh boy, thanks a lot! This made me realize that there is another bug in TB where the shortcuts of the commands are sometimes shown in the context menus and sometimes not, which is also why I did not see it last time I looked. I just checked and they were there, then I reopened TB and now they are gone again. This is some very inconsistent behavior.
tanstaafl wrote:3. Is "check for new mail on startup" and "check for new mail every "X" minutes" configured in each POP accounts server settings? In general the global inbox just lets "N" POP accounts share the Local Folders pseudo account as their "local directory" (where they store their files) and hides the POP accounts in the folder pane.
Yes they are checked, this is also the default setting for new mailboxes when they are set up.
tanstaafl wrote:The "get messages" button is really a combo list box that defaults to checking for new mail in the currently selected account if you press it. The list box has a "get all new messages" entry followed by entries for each account.
It actually checks for ALL accounts when you press it, unless you use the dropdown menu and select a specific account.
tanstaafl wrote:4. I haven't heard of the folder order in the folder pane randomly changing before. Perhaps its due to an add-on you installed that needs updating to be fully compatible with version 91. The manually sort folders add-on at https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/th ... src=search is the normal way to move folders and/or accounts position in the folder pane.
I only have the aforementioned ImportExportTools NG installed as addon, nothing else. Thanks for the addon link, I will check it out; however, I am not sure if that addon will actually let me set the order for the global folders (inbox, sent, outbox, bin). I do not need to rearrange local folders, only the global ones.

And thanks for the dark theme suggestions, I will check them out as well!
andokay
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by andokay »

Short update to point #4 regarding the order changing sometimes. When I start TB the order is:

* inbox
* sent
* bin
* outbox

I received an e-mail, I pressed DEL to move it to the bin, then I rightclick->empty the bin to delete the containing e-mail. After this happened the order changed to:

* inbox
* sent
* outbox
* bin

When I close TB and reopen it the order is back to the old one where bin is on number 3 and outbox is on number 4. That is some seriously weird behavior.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by tanstaafl »

Perhaps you have a corrupted session.json , xulstore.json, foldertree.json, or panacea.dat file. Exit Thunderbird, delete those files in the profile and restart. It will recreate those files using default values. You may have to customize the toolbar again.

I assume you have no utilities (Ccleaner etc.) trying to clean up Thunderbird's profile by clearing caches or deleting files it considers surplus. If you do you need to explicitly add the Thunderbird profile to its list of directories to exclude (ignore) and uncheck any features that mention Thunderbird.
andokay
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by andokay »

My TB is two days old (I pretty much created the topic the night after I started using TB), I wonder how that would be corrupted. I would argue that it's TB being inconsistent/buggy, as it has been with some other things as well (randomly showing/not showing keyboard shortcuts in the context menus, for example). Anyhow, I did what you asked and it didn't change anything. I do not use CC cleaner or any of that stuff, no.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by tanstaafl »

I wasn't really thinking of bit rot, just trying to think of possible mechanisms. I only found one thread about a similar problem (it was on a different support forum) and there was no solution.

The Outbox folder is actually an alias for a "Unsent Messages" mbox file. By default Thunderbird stores all of the messages for each folder in a file named after the folder, with no file extension, using the mbox format. "inbox." for example is the mbox file used to store the messages for the inbox folder. "inbox.msf" is basically a cache of the folder listing (no messages in it) and "inbox.sbd" is a renamed directory created if the inbox has any child folders to store the mbox files in a folder hierarchy.

If the Outbox is the only folder that changes position perhaps its somehow due to it using an alias.

You have a bin folder rather than a trash folder so I suspect you're using a different locale than me (en-us), perhaps en-gb. Occasionally there are locale specific errors created. When that happens they frequently get fixed in a later minor update. A "locale" is mainly used to support other languages, but it is sometimes used to support different cultures using the same language. There are English-US, English-Canadian and English-British locales for example.
andokay
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by andokay »

Thank you for the explanation of how TB stores stuff, I found it a bit peculiar myself that there are files without file extensions when I browsed through the folder.

I do have a different locale indeed, it's German. I just translated the German words into English myself, I didn't know TB calls it "Trash" in English :D. The literal folder names in German are:

Posteingang (inbox)
Gesendet (sent - this one only appeared at all after I actually sent an e-mail, it was not there by default before!)
Papierkorb (bin/trash)
Postausgang (outbox)

I can reproduce the issue by copying any existing message into the inbox folder, then deleting it into the trash and then emptying the trash. As soon as I empty the trash the folders "Papierkorb" (trash) and "Postausgang" (outbox) switch places. When I restart TB they are at the original spot again (Papierkorb/trash third, Postausgang/outbox last).
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tanstaafl
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by tanstaafl »

Thunderbird evolved from code in Mozilla Suite and Netscape Communicator. So it has some conventions for historical reasons. Some other email clients use a .mbox file extension for mbox files, which seems a much better choice to me.

I'll download a German version of Thunderbird tonight and see if I can duplicate your problem with a single Gmail POP account configured to be a global inbox, using a new profile.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by tanstaafl »

I tried deleting messages in both the inbox and sent folder and then emptying the trash while using a German locale installation and the order of folders in Local Folders didn't change. So I'd assume its not a locale specific bug and its some sort of configuration specific one. I suspect you're just going to have to live with the bug for now and hope it disappears in a later version.
andokay
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Re: Growing pains of a first-time Thunderbird user

Post by andokay »

Thank you for trying. It's not a big issue, it's just weird :D. What I would rather have "fixed" is that unread mails that are deleted into the trash are automatically marked as read, meaning the trash does not show any unread messages. I would also love to have just a button to empty the trash.
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