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Thunderbird Desktop settings research: what we learned from your feedback
- Daunk 2mo agoI want to use Thunderbird, but it's so... weird. And why can it not be minimized to tray? Am I supposed to sit and keep the Thunderbird window open at all times?
- tappaseater 2mo agoIt's funny you should say that, because the next release apparently directly addresses this. Including startup to tray. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/close-tray-starting-154 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/close-tray-starting-154
- Daunk 2mo agoWow, finally! Thanks for sharing.
- timbit42 2mo agoWhy is that even something an app would support? The desktop should handle that.
- thisislife2 2mo agoSounds like a pitch for why the next version of Thunderbird will be "AI-enabled".
- orphea 2mo agoThose two images in the post do look... "AI-enabled"
- kbenson 2mo agoThey look like stock Powerpoint slide templates to me, which if that is a common way for AI to show items, is likely because it was already a common visual technique and AI learned it that way.
- jayofdoom 2mo agoThunderbird has spun off from the usual Mozilla stuff. I would be shocked if they moved in this direction.
- markstos 2mo agoWhat's planned for upcoming versions of Thunderbird are in public roadmaps: https://roadmaps.thunderbird.net/en-US/ https://roadmaps.thunderbird.net/en-US/
- cromka 2mo agoIf they make importing an ICS file a one-click action in place of the full-blown, click-through import wizard, I'll be a happy camper. Deep down, though, I really wish they rebuilt it on top of something less heavy than Firefox, eg. ZED's GPUI.
- XorNot 2mo agoI'd like the Oauth authentication setting to work in the latest version. But that might just be me. I'd also like it to be possible to enter a U2F pin number when using Oauth because then I could actually use it with my company Yubikey.
- Borealid 2mo agoU2F does not support PINs. You may be thinking of FIDO2, which does.
- extr0pian 2mo agoFrom user feedback, I wonder if they've learned how to prevent Thunderbird from creating an empty "thunderbird" folder in my home directory yet.
- nullsanity 2mo ago[dead]
- Jaxan 2mo agoHmm strange, I have never had a thunderbird folder in my home dir. I use thunderbird on Mac, Windows and Linux (Ubuntu).
- extr0pian 2mo agoIt's been an ongoing issue since the beginning of the year, at least on Linux. Since you're using Ubuntu (which is based on Debian), you may be using an older or an LTS version. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2007074 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2007074
- vlod 2mo agoIs this is the snap version of tb? If so it has restricted file access. Maybe try the .deb version? (maybe need to back up your data in ~/snap/thunderbird/
- nosrepa 2mo agoThe flatpack version does it as well.
- grayhatter 2mo agoIf only there was a way to edit the source code, and recompile it yourself. Oh well, no software is perfect.
- llbbdd 2mo agoThis is a good encapsulation of why the year of the Linux desktop is perpetually fifteen years away.
- runxel 2mo agoJust hoping the maildir and proper Gmail-like threading comes soon finally.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- ajdude 2mo ago> A few weeks ago, we conducted hour-long conversations with 10 of our users to dig deep into how you manage your preferences and configurations in Thunderbird desktop Is only 10 people representative of the population of thunderbird users?
- Aachen 2mo agoFwiw, even just going through your software with one user can give quite a few insights about what's not obvious about it. That's not at all to say you never need more, but very few open source projects do user research in the first place, being passion projects that just scratch the developer's/s' itch. More samples is always better, definitely at n=10, but I'd also not dismiss the results and benefits of doing it!
- daneel_w 2mo agoIf the crowd is diverse enough. Was it? The article doesn't reveal.
- angiolillo 2mo agoThe video goes into slightly more depth, and at about 1:30 into the video they acknowledge that the participants were not representative and that they would like to conduct further research.
- InsideOutSanta 2mo agoAlso, how many people you need depends heavily on whether the thing you're researching affects a lot of people. If settings has a problem that affects 40% of people, then a sample of 10 people would yield results representative of the whole population. Sample size is a very weird, often kinda counter-intuitive topic.
- angiolillo 2mo ago> Is only 10 people representative of the population of thunderbird users? For very narrow studies it is possible to get representative data with fewer than a dozen interviews, but in this case it is explicitly not representative. In the video they mention that most of the participants have used Thunderbird for over a decade and follow release notes, development, and various forums closely, which to me suggests that they were recruited opportunistically rather than a random statistical sampling. They do mention that they have plans to engage a larger audience in the future but that can be incredibly expensive. Even large organizations typically have to augment a small number of representative interviews with a large number of surveys and a very large set of user telemetry to properly weight interview feedback.
- daneel_w 2mo agoSample of 10? Was this little clique also from one and the same corporate office?
- mbeex 2mo ago> Settings Missing step numero Zero: What is a menu bar, where should it be placed, and how do I use its menu items in a way that adheres to the basic design rules of all operating systems on which this software runs?
- the__alchemist 2mo agoTB has big UX problems not mentioned: Search works poorly (Misses too many results to be useful), messages you typed have weird paragraph spacings, and reading multi-message threads is a mess.
- pmontra 2mo agoWhich UX problems? When I read > Thunderbird’s robust functionality is its superpower, but a dated interface shouldn’t be a barrier to entry for newer users. I started preparing for the worst.
- healsdata 2mo agoSearch doesn't work on mobile for me at all. On Desktop, I always have to fiddle with filters to find the message I want.
- autoexec 2mo agoSearch does miss a lot of stuff. I hope they never get rid of the option for storing messages in MBOX because I find I have to grep through my messages all the time.
- sunaookami 2mo agoKudos to the Thunderbird team for improving TB so much over the past few years, it really helped that they split from Mozilla. K9-Mail (which is now TB) also strongly benefitted from this. Maybe Mozilla will start listening to their users someday...
- babolivier 2mo agoThunderbird has actually come back to Mozilla around 2017: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-hom... And has been operating as a fully fledged subsidiary of the foundation since 2020: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
- sunaookami 2mo agoThanks for the correction! Wasn't it under the Mozilla Corporation before? It's clear that there was a cultural shift at Thunderbird either way.
- cryo32 2mo agoCan we have the UI that was promised in all the mock ups a few years back please?
- dataAI 2mo agoThunderbird is great and was my main email app for a decade – until I de-googled my life. I think settings were a horrible mess, but after that UX sending/receiving email were great.
- aniceperson 2mo agoplease make the oauth flow catchy and easy to debug, like straight up suggesting that an unreachable imap server is because the port is blocked or catching the the custom domainis just outlook and updating the flow accordingly. Make it nice for enterprises, so users can push for enterprise use, too :)
- Markoff 2mo agorelated - recently I learned Microsoft doesn't provide any way to download all your emails from outlook.com in one way to back them up, so Thunderbird was the tool I used to create backup still can't comprehend how is this legal in EU, Google at least provide takeout
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- ptx 2mo agoWhy are they repeating the 6 key themes twice but phrased in different ways and in different order? And then there are 6 recommendations and 5 improvements which are very similar to each other, but the article doesn't say how they are related. I would suggest they first "demystify the language" and "streamline information architecture" of the article itself. Also some details would be nice. And some acknowledgement of an understanding that the UI being "dated" and not "modern" probably isn't what's making it difficult to use.
- autoexec 2mo agoIf I were one of those 10 people I'd have told them that I love "dated" UIs. Most modern UIs are trash. I'd hate it if efforts to make Thunderbird shiny enough to attract users sacrificed functionality, ease of use, or customization.
- Insimwytim 2mo agoThe post is vibe-slop, prompted by non-technical PM who viewed the task as a chore. The tone with which it manages to objectify the users and distance the writer from them is a cherry on top.
- BoppreH 2mo agoI tried Thunderbird recently, and was baffled that there seemed to be no way to see received emails grouped with my responses to them (aka threading or conversations). Even grouping incoming emails that have the same subject seemed like an experimental feature. Surely I'm missing something? How are people using it? If someone replies to you "I think there was a problem with your attachment", do you search for your sent email?
- sylens 2mo agoIt’s been there for a while https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thunderbird https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thund...
- BoppreH 2mo agoI had tried this, but the grouping only happened among messages of each folder. And Sent is a separate folder, so it doesn't get included. Or did I miss something? Do you see your replies in the threaded view?
- PurpleRamen 2mo agoThunderbird has a folder-based organization, so out of the box can it only group mails per folder. What you want is a GMail-view/organization, where all mails are in one folder. But this will probably not work well with bigger amounts of mails, because Thunderbird is not optimized for this, especially when the mails are on a remote server.
- BoppreH 2mo agoWhich one do you use? I'm really curious if there's an alternative workflow that is just as good as GMail-view, or people just learn to accept the limitations.
- PurpleRamen 2mo ago
- johnea 2mo ago#1 suggestion: Get rid of Identities! There is no reason for the client to insist on knowing every email alias that delivers to a mail store. Whatever the To address of a received mail, use that for the From addr in any replies... #2 Suggestion: Make calendar reminders not get lost on snooze...
- autoexec 2mo ago> You customize extensively during your initial setup, followed only by minor tweaks to get your workspace just right. If all of your users customize extensively the moment they get your hands on the software that means your defaults suck. As long as they keep letting people customize it's good enough though.
- glub103011 2mo ago[dead]
- tim-projects 2mo agoI know it'll never happen, but it would be great to have a Thunderbird headless version that runs in the tray and handles sending and receiving. I.e. a low memory solution so you can leave it going and only open the client for actual interactions. Thunderbird is pretty bloated to leave open all day and sending and receiving shouldn't need a web browser attached.
- tredre3 2mo ago> I.e. a low memory solution so you can leave it going and only open the client for actual interactions. Thunderbird is pretty bloated to leave open all day and sending and receiving shouldn't need a web browser attached. I agree with you. Having my mail client still use ~800MB of memory when in the tray is not great (and I have very few emails, so one cannot blame the index or whatever). Unfortunately since Thunderbird's IMAP stack was recently (a few years ago) rewritten in javascript (from C++), it's now dependant on the web stack to receive and send emails. I doubt firefox/thunderbird is engineered in a way that you could unload only the html rendering part on demand. So I doubt we'll ever have our wish granted...
- wsmwk 2mo agoYou may be confusing IMAP+js with pop+js. Pop is running as js, but the IMAP rewrite was abandoned early. IMAP will likely be rewritten in Rust in a future year.
- wsmwk 2mo agoTray implementations are actually on the horizon - recently taking shape with the help of community developers. For example Bug 2023000 - Implement Linux system tray: hide-to-tray
- stevenicr 2mo agoI wish it was one click to: right-click make rule about this sender delete all the stuff in the email address (from left to right) up to the domain name (not just the name and @ symbol, but subdomain too ) click drop down to select the trash click save wait for popup. click run single rule.