# Is Thunderbird (email app) still good? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 1, 2024, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972 "2024-02-01T14:55:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2024, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/61 "2024-02-05T20:55:06Z")
I have all of my emails since I got my Gmail account. I did delete some attachments so I wouldn’t run out of space, but it’s fine. I’m not like my dad, who gets tons of junk mail. I had to go through and delete a lot of old messages for him. It took forever, because Gmail won’t delete more than about 1000 messages at a time, even if you select all, and it takes like 5 minutes each time. They apparently aren’t equipped for deleting old mail. As for backups, why would incremental backups be a ton of bandwidth? The whole point is that you backup as you go. That’s how services like Backblaze can work even if you’re on DSL and only have 3 mbps. It may take over a month to do the initial backup, but then it’s just a trickle the rest of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2024, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/62 "2024-02-05T21:18:12Z")
K9 is pretty good, thank you! All my mail addresses (except the one from my own web page) work. I haven’t tried the sorting in folders thing, because I don’t think I need it, it is just to read the new mails when on the way, I sort them on my computer later. I will keep trying the one e-mail that refuses, there should be a way. I’m meeting my computer nerd on Thursday, he may help. Anyway, good enough for starters, so thanks again. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2024, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/63 "2024-02-06T01:38:09Z")
Another good option on Android is [FairEmail](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.email&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1). There is a small onetime price to get all of the features, but the free version has enough to be useful to try out, or use free, forever depending on what you need. I used it for awhile, paid for it, and I think it has a better user interface than K9, but for some reasons that probably won’t matter to other people, I did go back to K9. Those are the only two I’ve found acceptable on Android (and they’re both better than Mail.app on IOS, so there!). ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/64 "2024-02-17T01:12:25Z")
Whoa, Eudora…I haven’t thought about that in mumbles years! That was my first email client. I use Outlook at work and at home…I actually like the ‘new’ Outlook for Mac, but the ‘new’ version for Windows is absolutely unusable at work. (I’m using Windows 11, if that matters.) They’ve utterly ruined the functionality of the to-do list, separating tasks depending on how they were created (actual tasks and flagged emails are no longer shown in the same list). To answer the OP, I’m still using Thunderbird, but it’s on Ubuntu. I like the way it can display multiple accounts (or folders) as tabs. The interface seems a bit crowded, but I think that’s a result of my display configuration (I use a TV as my monitor, which can make scaling and font sizing problematic.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/65 "2024-02-17T05:41:06Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > > [@BigT](#): > > > > You can write to files by appending data–you don’t have to rewrite the entire file every time. ⁢ > > That’s fine for adding a message to a folder, but isn’t the case when _deleting_ a message. Deleting can be an expensive operation, so is often saved up and done when a folder is “compacted”, instead of done immediately when a message is deleted. True, but the same is true of file systems. A file is not immediately erased when you delete it. It is marked for deletion. Most OSes these days list the file in some sort of “trash” (e.g. Windows’ Recycle Bin). But, even if they don’t, the file doesn’t get erased until it is needed to be overwritten. And, even then, it may not be actually erased, but left in a block on an SSD until the SSD receives a TRIM command, which is conceptually similar. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2024, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/66 "2024-04-07T03:09:23Z")
I’m updating this not-quite-zombie with another observation. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to using Thunderbird for my primary email because there’s no sign that my ISP is going to back off on their requirement for Oauth2. But there are still so many things about it that I hate. I thank @markn_1 for their earlier advice regarding unthreading emails, which I’ve done. But now there’s an extremely annoying problem where when I click on an email that’s part of a long conversation, every single individual email in the chain opens in a separate tab. So I read the latest email, and then have to individually close every one of those tabs. This is idiotic. Outlook was so much better and more intuitive. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2024, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/67 "2024-04-07T03:29:54Z")
An idea came to me, @wolfpup. I presume your ISP doesn’t have any sort of webmail. If it did, though, you could forward the mail to another email account where Outlook still works. And then I thought about how you can set up Thunderbird to forward email. Now you’d have to always have Thunderbird running (and/or start it before you check the other email). But if it’s that bad for you, I thought it might be worth it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2024, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/68 "2024-04-07T04:39:35Z")
Mine doesn’t do that. I have no idea what setting makes it so that for you, but there’s a setting and you can change it. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2024, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/69 "2024-04-07T05:10:34Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Mine doesn’t do that. I have no idea what setting makes it so that for you, but there’s a setting and you can change it.   Well, you’re luckier than I am, because these are the only settings I see that have any relevance: [![](https://i.imgur.com/a8sQV2M.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/a8sQV2M.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2024, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/70 "2024-04-07T05:17:55Z")
What happens when you choose the option to open a new message in an existing message window? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2024, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/71 "2024-04-07T05:29:56Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > What happens when you choose the option to open a new message in an existing message window?   What happens is that the new message opens in a new window. I don’t know WTF the difference is supposed to be between “existing message window” and “new window”, but this is certainly a new window. But at least in that case I don’t get a dozen tabs related to a dozen conversational interactions. I so want my Outlook back! ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/72 "2024-04-08T00:18:40Z")
I just discovered more strange behaviour. The suggestion you made works for messages in the Inbox. But when I click on a message in the Sent folder that was part of a multi-message conversation, it insists on opening a window for each message in the chain. I just clicked on a message in the Sent folder that was part of a back-and-forth conversation, and the stupid thing opened about half a dozen windows! So it obeys the “open message in existing window” setting for Inbox but not for Sent items! ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/73 "2024-04-08T04:52:36Z")
I set my partner (allthegood) up with Thunderbird on her Windows PC because, although I’m a Eudora person, Eudora was as dead as MacOS 9 even back then. Sad and unfortunate but true. And Thunderbird was a decent email client that could handle multiple email accounts and had a tolerable interface. That was over a decade ago and she’s been mostly happy with it. (Sometimes it sucks up too many processor cycles or doesn’t relinquish RAM or something… her entire computer becomes unresponsive and she Ctrl-Alt-Dels it to death for the time being. But it’s only intermittent). Well, yesterday evening it updated itself without consulting her (she had it set up to only update if she okayed it, and never did). The update changed it so that the emails, and menus, and all text in the various controls, where white text on a white background. Useless. So I found a panel of update history and got the version number of her previous version and found an installer for that version. Confirmed that it was authentic by trying it on a virtual machine. Normal installer, certificate and proof of authenticity and all that good stuff. Good to go. Welllll… • Old version of Thunderbird was incompatible with the profile format so had to enter the profile info for all her email accounts from scratch. Which required two-factor authentication. Pain in the butt. But did all that, saw that the email displays were back to normal… only to get a popup “Thunderbird has successfully updated…” Awwww goddammit!!! Did a file search and finally found where the updates hide and deleted them from her hard drive. Uninstalled and reinstalled and reconfigured and re-two-factored and got her up and running again. I’m considerably less fond of Thunderbird at this point. It should have the ability to roll back to previous versions if updates prove problematic. It should have a setting to only do updates if the user clicks a “check for updates” button somewhere. What it has instead is that it checks no matter what, but asks if you want to. My guess is she hit a return key doing something, the damn “do you wanna update” popup intervened, took the return key as a “yeah do it” signal and ruined her. God I miss Eudora. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/74 "2024-04-08T04:59:35Z")
Mine started doing this as well. I found a setting to show everything as expanded or flat or I checked or unchecked a ‘threaded’ option or something (I’m not at that computer right now). In any case, it actually showed you all the emails at once instead of surprising you with a dozen windows when all you need is that old attachment that’s in which window now? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/75 "2024-04-08T05:08:50Z")
I found a clumsy workaround for the problem with emails in the Sent folder. Right-click on the email you want to read, and select “view as conversation” . It then displays all the emails in that chain, satisfying its apparently unstoppable desire to always open every single email in a chain, so now you can double-click any of those emails and it only opens that one. This is extremely annoying behaviour and an awkward workaround. I want my Outlook back! ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/76 "2024-04-08T08:16:00Z")
Have you set the sent folder to view | sort by | unthreaded ? You have to do this for all folders separately, (which is a PITA) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972/77 "2024-04-08T10:46:37Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > Have you set the sent folder to view | sort by | unthreaded ? That was it, thank you! I had been looking under Tools → Settings and had forgotten that it’s under “View”. Thunderbird sure doesn’t make these kinds of changes easy – in fact the menu bar on which “View” is found doesn’t even appear at all by default, you have to change a display setting to get it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thunderbird-email-app-still-good/996972.md?page=3)