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Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is the messaging client from the Mozilla Foundation. Because I used Netscape Messenger since my e-mail begin-times I am just used to its handling, features and look & feel. Because Thunderbird is a direct descendant of Netscape Messenger, it is still my favourite messaging client (well, professionally I use and like Notes).

In Debian GNU/Linux Thunderbird is called 'Icedove'. All products from the Mozilla Foundation have been rebranded due to Trademark issues.

Reply Headers

By default Thunderbird marks the original message only with name wrote:” when replying. Personally I like it to have a timestamp in there as well, like “On date, Name wrote:”. This is quite easy to configure, just a little hidden in the Config Editor. For a more visual aid I provided a screenshot. Filter on "reply_header" in the Config Editor

  1. Go in the menu to “Edit → Preferences”.
  2. Navigate the dialog to “Advanced → General → Config Editor”.
  3. Filter on “reply_header” in the config editor.

Here you will find the preference name “mailnews.reply_header_type” which has an integer value. You can set it to three values:

  • Set it to “1” (default) and you will get Name wrote:”
  • Set it to “2” as in my example and you will get “On date, name wrote:”
  • Set it to “3” and you will get Name wrote, On date:”

Also check the other values as shown in the screenshot, they are quite self-explanatory.

Checking multiple IMAP folders for new mail

Per Folder Setting

Enable "Check this folder for new messages" If you use server-side processing, sorting and filtering of your e-mail messages with IMAP (as e.g. shown with imapfilter) it can be very useful to check more than just the inbox for new messages.

To check for new mail in another IMAP folder, just right-click the folder you want to check for new mail and choose its “Properties”.

In the following dialog just check the option “Check this folder for new messages” and you are done!

Global Setting

If you have many folders that need to be checked for new mail and don't want to go through all folders to enable the mailcheck manually, or simply want to enable mail checking globally for all folders you can do so as well.

Just open the Config Editor (see above) and set these two values (the defaults are just the opposite):

mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new	true
mail.imap.use_status_for_biff			false

That's it already, Thunderbird will now globally check all IMAP folders for new mail, even over multiple mail accounts!

Calendaring with Sunbird

There is a really nice extension for Thunderbird that adds calendaring: Sunbird ('Iceowl' in Debian). If you setup your own WebDAV server you can even share your calendar with your family or synchronize it with your other installations of Thunderbird/Sunbird!

Installation

I'll assume you have successfully setup a WebDAV server and created at least one user.

Sunbird must be installed, in Debian (Lenny and newer) this is quite easy to achieve:

# apt-get install iceowl-extension

If Thunderbird (Icedove) is running it needs to be restarted.

Configuration

The configuration is quite easy, although there are a few steps to be followed. For your reference I made some screenshots.

  1. Open the calendar within Thunderbird (using the icon or menu).
  2. Right-click the existing calendar to create a new one.
  3. Choose “On the network” as your new calendars location.
  4. You must choose a type of calendar (iCalendar (ICS) is a save choice) as well as a location for your calendar. The location must point to your WebDAV server and include a filename!
  5. If this is the first time you connect to that WebDAV share, you will be asked for credentials. Use the username created during the WebDAV configuration.
  6. You can now pick a name and colour for this calendar, as well as an e-mail address to use for invitations. Different names and colours are useful when sharing calendars with others.
  7. You are now finished setting up the calendar.

You can now delete the default (local) calendar if you wish. Just double-click somwhere in the calendar view to create new appointments, the rest is pretty self-explanatory. Don't forget to also check out the other options!

Thunderbird will synchronize the calendar(s) on startup and shutdown, also every 30 minutes (default setting) while running. If you wish to manually synchronize the calendar(s) right-click on any calendar and choose “Reload Remote Calendars” in the menu. See also the first screenshot above.

You can also add more calenders. e.g. create one shared calendar and one personal calendar for every person in your household.

Happy calendaring!

apps/thunderbird.1403962192.txt.gz · Last modified: 2016-02-16 14:32 (external edit)