A poll about how many of us use Thunderbird

[Moem]

Can all y'all do me a favour and not quibble in my nice topic? That would be great. Cheers!

[asinoro]

Can all y'all do me a favour and not quibble in my nice topic? That would be great. Cheers!

I agree!

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

I don't use gmail, or any other online free e-mail service.

I use web-hosting pay service (my own domain name, mail, webpages hosting) and Thunderbird (mainly, and sometimes a webmail).

Why?
- Google, or Microsoft, or Yahoo or any... do not add spam ads to my emails, and cannot use my data,
- my mail address in not dependent on my ISP (if I change my ISP, I keep the same address),
- my mails DO NOT stay for long on the mail server: I use POP3 and download them on y computer,
- the connection between my mail server and my computer is encrypted (POP and SMTP),
- the mail server is in a foreign country, with a more privacy respectful law than in France.

--> mails are mine, and should stay private.

Regards,

MN

[AndyMH]

I use web-hosting pay service (my own domain name, mail, webpages hosting) and Thunderbird (mainly, and sometimes a webmail).

Pretty much the same, have had my own domain for approaching 20 years, hosting provider provides the usual mail and caldav services (and a lot more). It's not free, hosting costs me around £40/year, but worth every penny. Only differences - evolution not thunderbird and I use IMAP not POP3.

Digressing, mailspring has a very nice user interface, unfortunately no calendar (last time I looked). A calendar has been promised for some time, but think the developer is a one man band. If it had a calendar I'd switch tomorrow.

[Infidelus]

I also have my own domain; the only difference to the two posters above is that I host my own mail server with Mail-in-a-Box, so the mail server is owned and managed by me and me alone, with the same benefit that Google/MS/whoever else can't monetise my email data.

[Dubya]

I have recently migrated most of my daily desktop operations from Windows 10 to Mint 20.3.

I used Eudora as my email client on Windows up until early 2020 when my email providers made too difficult to continue. I then installed Thunderbird for my ongoing daily requirements but I kept Eudora as an archive of my correspondence going back to the 1990s.

Most on my "important" data files are kept on a drive separate to my system drive(s) so it was a no-brainer to use Thunderbird when I migrated to Mint. Last week I was able to install Eudora on Mint using PlayonLinux so I still have access to my old archive.

[DisturbedDragon]

Thunderbird exclusively no matter the operating system/distro. One place to manage all four of my email accounts. It works, always.

[MurphCID]

I just recently installed Thunderbird for Windows and it has replaced the Microsoft Mail app. While it is somewhat ugly, it works and I am used to it.

[antikythera]

Yeah that Mail app in Windows is absolutely useless with attachments. If it does not recognise a file type it won't let you even save the file. Then there's printing from it too, that can be hit and miss depending on whether or not Microsoft remember to configure the app permissions properly when they update it in the Store.

Ugly applications are subjective like F1 cars, they're beautiful because they work better than the rest of the 'grid' regardless of how they get to that solution. Also, no porpoising emails so it's all good.

[Portreve]

Now and then I read opinions about the popularity of Thunderbird and email clients in general. Some people apparently believe that hardly anyone uses them anymore. This might or might not be true; I'm curious about how Mint users in this forum use email. So please let us know.

I haven't used a dedicated email client on my desktop in something like 16 years. They offer nothing of value to me whatsoever.

I use specific email apps on my tablet and smart phone to access those specific email systems.

[Termy]

I've used Thunderbird for many years without any issues, if I remember correctly. The issues I remember having were down to the E-Mail provider.

[SallyK]

I used Thunderbird long before I switched to Linux, because it was so much better than the Outlook Express that came with Windows back them.

But once I switched to using Gmail as my main email rather than the one via my ISP, I found its spam filtering was so much better, and I preferred labels to folders, so I started using the webmail client all the time.

[mikeflan]

No offense, this is just an opinion, so no wars please.
But 70+GB does sound like a ridiculous amount of emails, when I was running a business, I tried to keep the inbox down to about 200 emails, you know mostly current stuff. The .thunderbird folder was less than 1 GB. If I thought any of the deleted emails would be handy for future I would add those to a separate file "contacts" (or customers etc.) and not in the TB contact list (to keep that purposely short as well).

My .thunderbird directory is 2.0 GB.

At the end of every year I save all the Thunderbird e-mails (Inbox, Trash, Sent, subfolders, etc) that I don't immediately, permanently delete. Most personal e-mails are kept - forever. All my saved e-mail (1998 through 2021) is only 3.3 GB (500 e-mail folders). I didn't used to delete large attachments, but now I mostly do. If I send you something big, I go into Sent, delete the attachment, but keep the e-mail. I use grepmail to search my old e-mail, but not very often.

[Tramp 116]

I used to use Thunderbird before I switched to my current webmail service. As I'm using their free service, they won't let me use any email client. Have to have a paid account for that. And as my emails are just personal chatting, I don't see the need to pay for this. I don't conduct any business online (ALL business is done OTC or on my flip phone) so there is little chance of someone getting any worthwhile data or info from my emails.

[half-word]

I use Thunderbird for all my addresses, even GMail, because I prefer an unified interface and the ability to read everything I've already downloaded offline if needed.

However I don't really like Thunderbird. The only mail client I've ever loved was Eudora which I've always found to have a perfect UX unlike anything else (A small example, if I created a new filter in Eudora, it offered to create a new folder and if I wanted that it created it under that adress' mailbox. Thunderbird requires I create the folder in advance and then chose it and of course it doesn't default to that address' folders.)

Webmail I don't like. They're clunky, they're different for different providers and of course, they are unavailable offline.

[Commissioning]

I use Thunderbird when I am anywhere that the internet connection is a bit dodgy, this way I can write mails and they go when the connection picks up. Otherwise I use the web connection via Firefox but experience shows this gets in a mess when it temporarily loses the internet connection and cannot save drafts and if I try to send then the mail gets put in the outbox (if possible) but does not get released unless I manually release it so mail I thought was sent is not.

It is a shame Mint does not have a more up to date version of TB in the repository.

[dave0808]

The new version looks like it has some nice additions (not tried it yet).

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/06/th ... unication/

[colinp1234]

I use webmail and have since I made my first gmail account back in the old times when you had to beg someone to recommend you. I used to use Thunderbird back when it was part of Netscape and before that was Pegasus Mail, but now I like to keep stuff simple, for an old guy like me.

I usually (when I think of it) remove Thunderbird from any of my computers.

[Cosmo.]

The new version looks like it has some nice additions (not tried it yet).

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/06/th ... unication/

There is one sentence on the linked page, which should not get forgotten:

Using Thunderbird 91 and don’t need an immediate upgrade? Your client should automatically update within the next few weeks as we gradually roll it out.

I hear already now people complaining, because the new version is not yet in the repositories.
(Moem, I hope that you agree posting this comment here.)

[Moem]

Moem, I hope that you agree posting this comment here.

It's fine.