Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Thunderbird

How can I get clean html from MS-word, to paste into thunderbird?

ManInSuit — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:53:31 -0800

How can I get clean html from MS-word, to paste into Thunderbird? Sometimes, when I'm sending long emails, I like to compose in my word processor - MS-word (2003 on one machine, 2007 on another), and paste into my email client - Thunderbird.

But when I do, there are all sorts of little (and not so little) formatting hiccups. I gather the problem is mostly that Word uses all sorts of crazy non-standard stuff in its html output.

Is there a way to fix this problem? I way to make word produce cleaner HTML? A tool that will turn Word html into something friendlier? A word-paste-cleanup plugin for Thunderbird?

(And : I know I could compose with Open Office or Google Docs. But mostly I like Word, and would like to keep using it if I can...)

Your chance to help education reform in a third world country

Suciu — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:37:31 -0800

Help! My job requires IT knowledge I don't have. Two questions. I'm doing a very open-ended internship in a third world country. After I arrived it was discovered that I knew more about computers than most people in the office. Unfortunately, I've got two problems that I don't have the knowledge to solve.

1) Network regulation. Is there anyway--without using a server--to block certain traffic on a network at certain times? I know about configuring the basic linksys router over here and services like OpenDNS, but nothing I know is time-constrained. I can't change router settings every day at 3pm or so.

Also, is there any way to stop certain kinds of downloads? (Lots of people are using the network to download movies, music, etc and we have limited bandwidth/month.)

2) Thunderbird to Excel. I'm trying to automate a leave (i.e. vacation) system, and my goal is to have it so that when a specially tagged email hits an inbox, it deducts a certain number of vacation days from an excel worksheet. I'm thinking of using Thunderbird (IMAP) to get emails client-side and then have some kind of program import that data into a nicely configured excel worksheet, but I can't seem to find a suitable plugin or program that would help do this--does anyone know if one exists?

(Or, is there a better way to go about this problem? I'm currently planning on using a gmail inbox with a ton on filters to get email from the worker requesting leave, to HR who confirms that there are leave days remaining, to the manager that approves the leave, and then back into HR's files... my trouble is with tabbing leave days without making anyone work.)

Older Gmail Messages Into Thunderbird

davidstandaford — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:42:32 -0800

How do I backup my gmail account and get all of my older gmail messages into Thunderbird on Windows XP? I'm trying to backup gmail using Thunderbird and it's not downloading older messages. When I installed Thunderbird and set it up with my gmail account it downloaded messages going back to 6/22/2009 4:08 AM. I have no idea where Thunderbird got that date from.

I have emails much older than that and when I tell Thunderbird to get messages it only downloads the newer ones. How do I get Thunderbird to backup all of those older gmail messages onto my computer.

If there is any other information I can provide that would help I'll update in comments.

Move my inbox from Thunderbird to Outlook

Sifter — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:57:41 -0800

Long time Thunderbird user, I'm trying to switch to Outlook as it works better with my iPhone, but I can't find a way to accurately move the contents of my inbox. Help! I've used several free programs (imapsize and tbird2oe) and neither transfers the date and sender of each message correctly - all the messages get given the same sender and date. Does anyone have any handy tips about how I can get round this?

Thunderbird in plain text

desjardins — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:39:28 -0800

How do I make everything appear in plain text in Mozilla Thunderbird? (using version 2.0.0.22 on Windows XP). I do not want to see any images, don't want to be asked if I want to see them, and I don't want anything to appear in HTML, including RSS feeds. I don't want to see people's cutesy stationary or Twitter's background colors when it notifies me of a new follower. I want black text on a white background, et rien de plus. I click "Show the article summary instead of loading the web page" when I subscribe to an RSS feed but the web page still loads. This was with a Yahoo News RSS feed (don't judge me). Do I need to use plain text news feeds? Does anyone use these anymore or is everything HTML?

Bonus question: How do I force Thunderbird to minimize to the system tray?

flightless bird

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:04:26 -0800

I'm having difficulty restoring my thunderbird profile. I copied my thunderbird profile onto a portable harddrive, reinstalled windows xp, and reinstalled thunderbird. I tried copying the new profile into C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\ and am trying to follow the instructions here but it can't get it work.

I changed the "Path=Profiles/svkxbom0.default" so that it matches the name of the profile I want to use.

The profile file has the following info:
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/svkxbom0.default

Do I need to change something else? Each time I open thunderbird it opens the address wizard and then ends up overwriting xxxx.default in the profile file.

Thanks for suggestions

Space for change

ChrisR — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:32:22 -0800

How can I reconcile Emacs, Firefox, and Cocoa controls' keyboard navigation, and still use Spaces' keyboard shortcuts? I'm trying to reconcile all of the assorted keyboard navigation shortcuts in a set of OSX applications in such a way as to permit me to use keyboard navigation in them consistenly, as well as supporting Spaces' keyboard shortcuts for navigating spaces. The three classes of apps I use, in order of frequency, are Emacs, Gecko (Firefox 3.5, Thunderbird 3.0 alphas), and cocoa controls. Here, right now, are the key mappings in place:

Emacs (Carbon Emacs, in particular):
shift-(left/right): move left/right a frame
shift-(up/down): move up/down a frame
ctrl-(left/right): move left/right a word
ctrl-(up/down): move up/down a paragraph
cmd-(left/right): move left/right a word
cmd-(up/down): move up/down a line, scrolling
opt-(left/right): Same as unmodified keys
opt-(up/down): Same as unmodified keys

Firefox/Thunderbird:
shift-(left/right): move left/right, extending selection
shift-(up/down): move up/down, excending selection
ctrl-(left/right): No effect
ctrl-(up/down): No effect
cmd-(left/right): move to the beginning/end of a line
cmd-(up/down): move to the beginning/end of a text widget's content
opt-(left/right): move left/right a word
opt-(up/down): No effect

TextEdit:
shift-(left/right): move left/right, extending selection
shift-(up/down): move up/down, excending selection
ctrl-(left/right): move to the beginning/end of a line
ctrl-(up/down): move to the beginning/end of a text widget's content
cmd-(left/right): move to the beginning/end of a line
cmd-(up/down): move to the beginning/end of a text widget's content
opt-(left/right): move left/right a word
opt-(up/down): move to the beginning/end of a line

Ideally, looking at the setup in emacs, I want to configure Spaces to use opt-(arrow-keys) to navigate, since that will have the least impact upon my regular workflow. To that end, I need to configure Firefox/Thunderbird/Cocoa controls to move left/right a word when ctrl-(left/right) is pressed; the paragraph support would be nice, but not necessary. Is this possible?

How to sync Blackberry with Google Calendar

backwards guitar — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:25:46 -0800

Can I sync a blackberry curve 8300 with Mozilla Thunderbird (+ Lightning) or Google Calendar without Outlook and with no data plan on my blackberry? I've got a Blackberry Curve 8300 with no data plan. I get push email and that is all. No web browsing, etc. I'd like to sync my blackberry calendar with Google Calendar.

I've currently got Google Calendar syncing with Thunderbird (and Lightning) on my Windows Vista machine. Is there software out there that will let me sync the blackberry to my Thunderbird calendar when the phone is connected via USB? Or even an app that will sync the blackberry directly with Google Calendar.

I found a few things that allow syncing with Outlook's calendar, but unfortunately I don't have Outlook.

Heal my flightless Thunderbird

prefpara — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:16:18 -0800

I just installed Thunderbird and added my gmail account. Thunderbird only wants to "get" about 100 emails at a time. I have many thousands of emails. Is there any way to make Thunderbird get all of my emails in one go? I don't want to sit here pressing "get mail" indefinitely. Additional pipe dream: is there any way to "get" my chats?

Time outs sending emails to gmail using IMAP

charlie7691 — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:33:08 -0800

How do I stop Outlook / Thunderbird timing out when pushing emails to Gmail via IMAP? I have folders containing up to 22,000 emails that I'd like to move from Outlook / Thunderbird to Gmail. I've tried the GML tool, and uploading via IMAP, and though IMAP seems the way forward (because it can replicate the folder structure too) it times out after uploading about 600 emails.
Although I could just send messages in 500s, the idea of doing this SO many times fills me with dread! Does anybody know how to stop IMAP timing out, or of some way to upload them (and their folder structure) more quickly?
I've got 1.3mb/s upload and fast PC, so connection speed shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks in advance,

Keeping things aggregated

Aanidaani — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:00:26 -0800

Is there a website that will allow me to aggregate all my different email accounts and access them from one place? I know that Gmail can import mail from other accounts, but I'd like to have all my accounts separate and use some kind of web service that will interface with all of them. So far I've been using Thunderbird on my desktop at home to do this, but I travel frequently and instead I want to remotely access one site that links all my accounts.

I tried Zenbe but they've since started charging for it and it doesn't even support IMAP. What other options are there?

How to transfer Netscape mail emails and address book from a broken PC to Thunderbird on a new iMac

mbarryf — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:42:07 -0800

I need to transfer Netscape email addresses and emails from a broken PC to Thunderbird (to be installed) on a new iMac. How do I do it? My wife's PC hard drive has failed. However, although the Windows portion of the drive is bad (booting Windows or accessing its components results in bad noises), I'm sure we can access the data from the drive if we put it into an external USB enclosure.

The most important thing to do is to get the Netscape mail emails and address book into the Mac so that either Mac mail or (we'll happily use) Thunderbird can use them.

Assuming that we can get this stuff onto some folder (where should we put it?) in the Mac, and we then install Thunderbird, how can we get Thunderbird to import this information?

Thunderbird and Lightning, very, very frightening me!

maudlin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:23:02 -0800

My Thunderbird/Lightning combo has been behaving oddly ever since a failed attempt to create a repeating event yesterday. It wiped out all events for March and stalls whenever I launch it now, although once launched, it seems to work smoothly. I've been able to add non-repeating events back into March and they are staying in place. My profile is backed up. What next? I'm running Windows XP SP3 and Thunderbird 2.0.0.19, the most recent update.

I tried creating my first repeating event in Lightning yesterday (every Thursday, starting March 12), set all the parameters, and clicked Save and Close, but nothing appeared on my calendar. I tried again with no results. I closed, relaunched, and found all my March calendar data was gone, although everything else seemed fine.

Now whenever I relaunch, my usual setup of panes in the Mail view do not appear immediately. I can see the folders on the left and the list of mail headers in the center, but my Events and Tasks panel at the right does not show. Then the entire screen goes white for a couple of seconds, then redraws and shows the same view I saw when I first launched. If I switch to Calendar view, then switch back, after a moment's lag, I finally see my three column layout. I have tried one more time to create a repeating event and it still doesn't work.

So my inclination is to get a final backup of my profile and reinstall, but I'm concerned that there are one or more failed repeating events lurking inside my profile that would just cause this to happen again.

Is this a known issue? Is there anything else I should try before I reinstall?

Disappearing Thunderbird rss feeds

Gooberoo — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 05:25:57 -0800

This morning I opened Thunderbird to check my favourite feeds and an entire subfolder has gone missing. I'm quite certain I didn't delete it accidently. I'm running XP, Thunderbird is V 2.0.0.19. The remainder of my feeds appear to be intact including a subfolder with several feeds in it. Where did they go? I tend to back things up but can't find a backup opml file so that's not an option. Is there some way to rollback my Thunderbird profile that I'm not thinking of?

Help!

Switching to Gmail for work email?

Cool Papa Bell — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:02:56 -0800

Have you used Gmail to handle work email? Were there any pitfalls? My previous places of business used Exchange servers, so at the office I'd use Outlook and then use the Exchange Web interface for home email. This was all well and good.

My current employer does not use Exchange, and its Web client is circa 1996 atrocious. While we can use Outlook at work, I've never liked the search functions, and without Exchange handling Calendars and Tasks, there's no *need* to use Outlook. As a result, I use Thunderbird with IMAP at work and at home.

I'm starting to dislike Thunderbird, for various reasons. It does wacky things with email forwards, for example. I've been thinking to just ditch it all and grab the work email to Gmail using POP3, and use Gmail as The One Interface to Rule Them All.

What are the common pitfalls I'm not seeing?

MS Exchange and IMAP

tucsongal — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:21:35 -0800

Help me communicate to my MS Exchange server admin: I want (full) IMAP access! At my current gig they use Exchange as the corporate email standard. I've been using Outlook for a few months when I got wind that IMAP was activiated on our Exchange server and other folks were using clients like Thunderbird with no issues... needless to say I was excited.

When I tried to use IMAP I was able to authenicate but the server reported that it could not find my INBOX.

When I wrote a script to dump all the folder that I *could* see via IMAP all that came back were all the 'public' folders.

When I ask for help no one at our help desk knows what the heck I am talking about.

My question is this: what 'majik words' can I say to my Exchange admin or settings has be changed for my account in Exchange so I can see my private INBOX via IMAP?

thanks!

How can I control Line Breaks in Thunderbird?

bwg — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:25:42 -0800

How can I control Line Breaks in Thunderbird? The problem is that e-mail replies often show up with added line breaks due to text-wrapping at 72 characters by the recipient's mail client.

I'd like to have all incoming message, whether HTML or plain-text, automatically displayed as flowing to the edge of the window or preview pane before wrapping.

I tried looking for an extension or setting that would do this but can't find anything.

If there a user_prefs hack?

Super Drag And Don't Go?

Solomon — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:08:03 -0800

In Firefox, I use an addon called Super Drag And Go to change whether or not a link opens in a new tab or a background tab. I want to have this same functionality in Thunderbird. I want to be able to control, on a link by link basis, whether a new tab is opened, thereby bringing the Firefox window to the front, or a background tab is opened, which leaves the Thunderbird window in the forefront.

I've found this method of altering Firefox so that all new tabs are opened in the background, but that's not what I want. I want to be able to choose, link by link, which type of tab is used, the same was as I can with Super Drag And Go.

I'm not concerned about how I get this functionality (click+drag, right click + "open in background tab", etc), more that I am able to choose on a case by case basis.

I've tried Googling, but addons.mozilla.org seems to assume that Firefox addons will work in Thunderbird, but this isn't the case.

Is there an addon/tweak that will let me do this? And if so, where?

How can I download Yahoo emails to my PC and keep them separate from my work email on MS Outlook?

Pastabagel — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:40:52 -0800

How can I download or archive the email from my Yahoo email account to a PC without it interfering with my work email running on Outlook on that same PC? Once downloaded, the yahoo email has to be searchable, filter-able, etc, so a flat text or zip file won't work. Can I install something like Thunderbird and use it to connect to my yahoo account without it conflicting with my Outlook email? In addition, I don't want the email to disappear from Yahoo - the emails on yahoo should be unchanged. If possible, the download solution should preserve my Yahoo mail folder structure.

This is strictly for forensic or archival purposes. I don't need to send yahoo email through this solution, only download and organize them. Given this, is Thunderbird even the best solution?

Whats the best desktop client to use for multiple Gmail accounts?

jeffderek — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:11:12 -0800

Whats the best desktop client to use for multiple Gmail accounts? I have 3 gmail accounts. One is my account that deals with real people, one is for mailing lists and forum notifications, and one is my work email. I'd like to access them via IMAP because I read all 3 on a desktop, laptop, and iPhone, and I want it to all stay in sync.

I originally used Outlook 2007 to do this. I liked the software, but multiple times a day I would get a popup message that said "IMAP Server has timed out". This is a documented issue with Gmail and Outlook over IMAP, and nobody seems interested in fixing it. I dealt with this for several months, and finally got fed up.

Now I'm using Thunderbird. I love it, but one of the accounts (my work account) regularly pops up a message asking me for my password. I type in the correct password, and it asks for it again, and then after a few times it gives up and says "Invalid Credentials." Sometimes restarting Thunderbird fixes it, sometimes it doesn't. I've tried clearing the CAPTCHA (google's suggestion for fixing the issue) and changing the frequency with which my accounts check for new messages so they all check at different times and are all more than 15 minutes every check.

All I want is a program that won't pop up an error once a day with a problem. I want a desktop client so I can read email when offline (I spend a lot of time with my laptop offline and need to access emails I have already received). Is there a client that will do this with GMail effectively? Both the Thunderbird issue and the Outlook issue seem well documented on the internet and no solutions have been found.

Thanks!

I want Thunderbird to ask what email address I want to use.

Plug Dub In — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:21:09 -0800

Thunderbird: Is there some magical way (plugin? manual tweak?) to have the "from" email account in new messages be blank so I'll have to select it each time I make a new email instead of using the last selected mailbox? I sometimes accidentally send email from my "professional" firstname.lastname@gmail.com email address when I really should send it from internet.handle@gmail.com.

It's not a huge deal, I'd just rather the fine people of Craigslist not have my full name. And I really hate webmail.

Fix my broken blog subscriptions!

softlord — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:00:33 -0800

One of the most obnoxious features of Thunderbird-as-RSS-reader is that when checking feeds it will display "http://feedurl.com/feed.xml is not a valid feed" in the status bar, but there doesn't seem to be any actual log of the broken ones anywhere, nor does there seem to be any way to view the errors as a list. I can export my list of feeds to an OPML file, but the only OPML validators i've been able to find online only tell me if the opml file itself is a valid format, not whether any of the linked-to xml files are either 404-ing or otherwise broken. This leads to me to my followup: 1) Is there any way for Thunderbird to give me a list of feeds it considers to be broken and unretrievable OR 2) is there an online service that can take an opml file and check the links for validity?

Help me use GMail Better

arniec — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:25:14 -0800

My company recently switched from a standard POP mail server to having GMail as our MX server and hosting all our business accounts. Overall the benefits are quite positive, but I'm having some usage issues that bug me. Can you help me use gmail better? Specific questions inside. Part 1: I love the benefit of the IMAP mail system, allowing my inbox to be anywhere I am, rather than centralized around a specific computer. Previously I had my POP work account for 3 years and amassed thousands of emails coming in at about 4GB, all of which I must keep for reference of correspondence, e-mail addresses, etc. I had my mail sorted into folders, about 30-40 different folders depending on correspondence type. All of that mail was in Outlook until I recently became a Mac convert. Now it's all in Thunderbird.

So I can have ALL my mail available where I can get to it from anywhere, I'd like to migrate it all to GMail. I read that using IMAP I can just drag these old e-mails into my Inbox folder in Thunderbird, but given that I have about 40 folders, I'm not sure how to get them to GMail without just having a very large Inbox with a conglomeration of e-mails in it. I am guessing I could drag one folder to the Inbox, then organize that on Gmail, drag another folder, etc. but that leads me to problem #2:

Part 2: I know GMail uses labels...are there no folders? Would I need to drag in the e-mails, then label them all to use GMail's label system instead of my current folder-based system? And is that the most efficient way to do this?

Part 3: I am really NOT a fam of the "message threading" that GMail does. Often I will send solicitations to business partners and each subject line will be identical, the messages nearly so. However because the subject lines are the same, GMail takes e-mails from different business partners and puts them all in one thread, filling me with paranoia of sending the wrong e-mail to the wrong person or, worse, sending an entire e-mail chain from one business partner to another business partner which may contain confidential data. Is there any way to alter the functionality or, perhaps ideally, turn OFF this "feature" in GMail?

Part 4: As I'm still new to GMail, any "Power User" tips for me?

Final Notes: I still plan on using Thunderbird as my client of choice when at my work PC. I just want the ability to have ALL my mail accessible from ANY location as I feel it will enable me to work more efficiently, rather than having to hold some e-mails until I get back to my primary PC.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Yes, I know I sent that email four seconds ago...

freudenschade — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:33:59 -0800

Gmail IMAP + Thunderbird: I set up Thunderbird as my email client last week, and everything has been smooth sailing until today. When I opened T-bird, every email I've ever written was in my Inbox! Please make it stop! As of this morning, every email I send appears immediately in my Inbox (both in Thunderbird and the Gmail web interface). I created and ran a filter in T-bird that moved all emails "from" my address to "Gmail > Sent Mail" -- this moved all the old emails, but new ones keep appearing in the Inbox, and I'd really rather not have to run that filter all the time.

Notes about my setup:
- Google Apps Gmail
- Thunderbird 2.0.0.16
- Have IMAP for the same account set up in Outlook 2007, which I open occasionally to for email testing purposes
- Some filters set up within Gmail and T-bird, none of which have any settings regarding Sent Mail

I can provide other details as well if it would help. Any insight would be very much appreciated.

Is Outlook the Best Option?

Bunglegirl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:13:50 -0800

What email program should my older mother use on her new Windows machine? My 65 year-old mother's computer died and her new one arrived a few minutes ago. It's running Windows XP Pro, I believe. She uses it to look at her money on Quicken, play casino video games off of CDs and check email.

She was using some very old version of Outlook before. It always had problems that she had trouble with like non-clickable links and not loading images or opening images. It's interface was cluttered with all kinds of functions she doesn't need. Her email consists of maybe 10 messages a day, mostly forwards from her friends which often include images. She doesn't use a RSS reader, calendars or any Office programs. She's gotten pretty good on the computer for someone who only started a few years ago (she's not hunting and pecking anymore) but I think a simpler interface will help her.

I'm a Mac person and, although I am often forced to help her on Windows, I don't really know what I'm doing. What email program should I tell her to use? I am in charge of setting it up so whatever I tell her is "email" she will use. I simply switched her default browser to Firefox and she didn't care. I'm thinking of Thunderbird (she doesn't like webmail or web applications) but have no experience with it. What email program should I install for her or will whatever comes with it be fine and un-complicated?

Bonus question: She insists on having Norton and Spysweeper on there. I tried to get her to use something else less bloated/horrible and she refused. Those programs crippled her last computer (but it was super old and pieced together by my dad). She just paid for new subscriptions so are there any steps to make it work well but not kill this new machine? I've read a lot about it but could stand to do some more research for specific steps.