Must-Have Extensions for Thunderbird 2.0

Operator writes "While Firefox has been in the spotlight for some time now, Thunderbird has yet to enjoy the same wide adoption or glowing praise despite being an excellent email client. It's no surprise that a popular topic has been Firefox's best (and worst) extensions while Thunderbird add-ons have gone largely unnoticed. In celebration of the recent release of Thunderbird 2.0 here are the best extensions for the program along with some honorable mentions."

inefficiency of splitting mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't understand why I need to have multiple copies of gecko shared libraries / dlls in memory since the split-up of mozilla into firefox, thunderbird, and sunbird. How is this waste of space supposed to be more efficient?

Wait for Penelope !

[Rastignac]

Now that the great Eudora is dead (no more updated), the Penelope project will bring Eudora's goodies to Thunderbird.
Just wait for Penelope, a better Thunderbird than Thunderbird !

Sloooooooo.....oooow

[mwvdlee]

I've recently tried Thunderbird 2 on a WinXP system, where I'd like it to replace Outlook Express. Feature-wise Thunderbird 2 seems to offer everything I need and it wasn't too hard to find them. However, Thunderbird 2 seems a lot slower than Outlook Express. Another annoyance was that Thunderbird 2 orders mails by send date, not received date: Spam often has a bullshit received date, making them pop-up all over my inbox, instead of neatly at the end where I can filter them out more easily. Even though I block well over 90% of spam, I still get a few hundred each day, so it's of some importance to me that I can manually filter spam easily.

Re:KMail

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried Thunderbird 1.5. (on Windows XP).
What it really lacked was integrated back-up/restore functions. (Outlook has this - export/import.)
I am not saying MS Outlook is the best, only that mail/account export/import functions should be present in e-mail program and you should not look for some extention or dig in support pages for this, it shoud just work.

By the way, does anybody now if thisis solved in TB 2.0.? (I would really try it once more if it has it)

Because it sucks?

[thsths]

Sorry to be so blunt, I'll try to explain what I mean. Whichever way you look at it, Firefox is the gold standard of browsers. It is more standard compliant and easier to use than IE, more compatibly than Konqueror, and much more extensible and better looking than Opera. While you can find better browsers for niche applications (lynx on telnet), there is no general purpose browser that comes even close to Firefox.

Thunderbird on the other hand is just a lot of promises. It still uses folders, while labels are obviously the way to go. Threading is poor. Integration between different message sources is basically non-existent. The search function sucks really badly. There is no integration with any reasonable calender (and don't call sunbird reasonable). And it is actually difficult to use, certainly compared to the competition (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, Opera, KMail...).

I mean seriously: can Thunderbird even sort threads on the date of the most recent message in a thread? Last time I tried it could not. GMail does that by default, and it is by far the most sensible way to order messages. Make Thunderbird not suck, and I will give it another try.

Anyone know of an extension

[Rogerborg]

That allows message filters to run on the body of IMAP messages? That's pretty basic functionality for Thunderbird to still be missing, given how long it's been a known issue. And yes, I've tried the "might work-arounds", and they don't.

Re:A True Must Have

[Threni]

> If we're ever going to have digital signatures become the norm (something I'd like to see)

Most email users have never had anyone try and fake messages from them to other people. I can see the advantages, but non-nerds aren't going to jump through hoops to add the required encryption subsystem to their email systems when it offers no advantage. I can see encryption itself being marginally more popular, but not much so.

Re:KMail

[MobyDisk]

I've used Thunderbird for years... and it quite regularly corrupts my local mail store. I have a bag of tricks for dealing with it. It is always in very minor ways though: Can't delete attachments, can't find an email via search even though it is there. A few messages that sort wrong, etc. The problem with most of these is they are intermittent so I can't reproduce them reliably any more.

TagZilla

[T.E.D.]

The only add-on I use is TagZilla [mozdev.org], which adds a randomly selected tagline from a file to every email. I'm so attached to this that I won't upgrade to newer versions of Thunderbird until TagZilla supports them.

I have people ask me all the time how I get those randomly selected tags on my emails. Of course the answer starts with "First off, you have to be using Thunderbird..." :-)

Re:inefficiency of splitting mozilla

[Asztal_]

Since Firefox 3 and SeaMonkey 1.5 (and probably Thunderbird, too) will be based on XULRunner [mozilla.org], this problem should be solved by then.

Re:Because it sucks?

[LWATCDR]

Tunderbird V2 adds tags but frankly I like folders. I do not see how tags are obviously the way to go. In fact that is the one thing I don't like about Gmail.
Yes you can sort however you like. It really isn't a problem.
And so far the search works well for me.
Kmail and Evolution only run on Linux and I have to use Windows.
Outlook has caused me more grief with blown PSTs and other issues than I can shake a stick at and it only runs on Windows and I have to use Linux.
Gmail and Yahoo mail? They are not bad but I need to access my office email server.
Thunderbird while not perfect.. Get a good calander interface going guys. Is a good email client. It just isn't a good calender client.

I have yet to see as complete of a solution as Outlook+Exchange yet. I am just not willing to pay the price to use Exchange.

Forget the extensions, improve the app!

[MidnightBrewer]

I recently downloaded Thunderbird 2.0 and was surprised to see that it was basically the same application as before, except that the icons were slightly prettier and I could no longer find the junk mail controls. Address book handling is still obsolete, as well as editing entries (editing a person's name is awkward, as typing a first and last name may actually require you to edit *three* fields - go figure.) One particular annoyance is that you can only store two emails for each contact. Many of my close friends have work, home, and cell phone, so this is a bit of an annoyance for me. Rule editing is also crufty; you cannot move rules across mail accounts, and there is no way to base a new rule off of an old one - also, basing a rule off of a message is only useful if it is set to filter based on that particular sender's address. Threading is over-complicated, split across two sub-menus, and rife with unnecessary options that usually end up with new users unintentionally hiding their emails.

I have always had a soft spot for the children of Netscape, but Thunderbird hasn't seen a serious reworking since it was split off from the original program. Let me know when the developers release a serious update, and I'll take another look. Until then, I will continue to use the PortableApp version of Thunderbird to check my email at work; it's not that it doesn't work, it's just that it lacks elegance.

gmail signing and encryption

[arabagast]

http://freenigma.com/ [freenigma.com] - the freenigma plugin for firefox offers encryption and signing of mail with gmail, I think they are planning support for yahoo mail also.

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