I’m looking for a filter that upon specific text in the subject line will either play a different sound (other then the default) OR print out the email. Either will work fine, but Thunderbird doesn’t seem to have anything like it.
Also, in Vista, I have it set so that when it goes into screen saver it prompts for a password when you take it back into normal mode. Currently, when in screen saver mode Thunderbird doesn’t check for emails like it normally does (though, as far as I can tell it keeps the network connection open). Is there someway to keep it checking for emails while the screen saver is running?
In general, when a screen saver is running, other active programs are paged out and all the CPU cycled are dedicated to that screen saver program (except a few used to periodically check for a keypress or a mouse movement). In that situation, Thunderbird is inactive, so it seems unlikely that it could do what you want.
I’ve got two possible answers for you, but both come with some caveats that make them less than ideal. Both solutions are based on Thunderbird add-ons.
The first is autoPrint. Like the name implies, it allows you to automatically print incoming email. The description indicates that it can filter based on subject (among other things), so on its face, it appears to fully fit your needs.
Unfortunately, the plug-in’s listed as experimental. Even more serious is a limitation/bug described in the first review: If multiple messages are received at once, instead of queuing them up and printing them all, it only prints one of them. However, as long as you’re willing to double-check your mailbox when a message pops out to make sure you haven’t missed any emails, this may be acceptable.
The second is New Filters. This one adds a number of filter actions including the ability to play a sound. Again, it sounds like this plug-in fits your needs.
Unfortunately, this one has an even worse caveat: It only seems to support Thunderbird up to version 1.5. So if you’re using the latest 2.x version of Thunderbird, you’ll need to do some hacking to get it to work. I have no clue how much work it entails. In addition, it doesn’t add the new filter actions to the filter UI. Instead, you have to manually edit the text file where Thunderbird saves the filters. Finally, this add-on is hosted on a Mac site. It’s probably OS independent (since most of the add-ons are javascript-based), but I can’t guarantee it, and I haven’t tested it.
Thank you for the work, but I don’t think either of these will do. Here’s what I’m doing. When someone places an order on my website it sends me an email. No one else checks my email (and I wouldn’t want them to). The idea is that if I’m off for a day and an order comes in it would print the “You have a new order” email that way someone else would eventually see it on the printer and could pull the order. Getting it to play a sound, now that I think about it, wouldn’t work since orders could very well come in when no one is around.
Since the printer one has that odd issue, I’m not sure it would work. For this to work for me it has to be 100%. If it misses an email, the person’s order won’t get pulled off the website until I’m back to my computer.
So, for the time being, I think when I’m away I’ll just foward the emails to hiim
Thanks anyways.
I know this thread is OLD but I am running into the same issue. Have a website with online appointments and want them to auto-print to the front reception desk.
I use Thunderbird and LOVE it for the IMAP support, and have office 2007 on that computer so I know I can do the auto-print using Outlooks print rule but the IMAP support on Outlook sucks and I love my thunderbird!
In my search I see that people have been asking about this feature since Thunderbird 1.2 back in 2005! In 6 years we haven’t progressed on this issue at all? There are no addons with Thunderbird 8 that work.
Anyone have something to add to this? Spent hours so far and its driving me crazy. I just can’t accept that there aren’t any options here but to move to M$ software :smack:
I can’t imagine which would be worse, M$ Outlook w/ its crappy IMAP or not having the feature to auto-print!!!
There might be a way using a automated script (such as AutoIt). A bit fiddly, but if you are able to get a hook onto what TB does when receiving new mail, perhaps a method could be found.
Seems like one step would be to have a separate email account just for orders. Then you can try to do something with that account. Possibly a script to run at 7am each day, opening that email account and printing all the emails?
If you already have Outlook, can you have Thunderbird forward all the relevant emails to another email address and then have Outlook check that other address and print emails from there?
How did you find ToneQuilla?! It doesn’t advertise the print functions in the description, but the screenshot shows a print option!!! I will test on the new thunderbird but it says it has the support and the number of users that have it installed makes this more than just a temporary fix!
Thank you so much!
Also thanks to all the other people that took the time to post and help.
To answer the PM, SurfCity, no I never did find a solution, but I really didn’t keep looking after I asked.
It’s kind of moot now since I have a smart phone. When an order comes in (or any email for that matter) I know it right away. If it’s important enough that it can’t wait until I get back to work (for example, it has to be shipped out UPS today to make it to it’s destination on time) I just call someone at work and give them the details over the phone.
We don’t do a ton of internet business so I didn’t invest a lot of time in finding an answer to this question.