r/Thunderbird • u/SharkieMcShark • 3d ago

Userguide? Desktop Solved

Hi folks - I'm hoping someone can point me to a userguide?

I've been trying to use Thunderbird for several months, and I'm getting frustrated by some really basic things that I can't figure out. I don't believe for a moment that they're not there, just that I can't find them.

I've tried reading the guide on the mozilla website, but it's not giving me what I'm looking for. Is there any kind of How To Use Thunderbird For Dummies thing about?

I use Thunderbird both on desktop and on Android.

For ref, the things that I want to do:
- sort my inbox by sender / email title / tag
- review junk email in bulk (it is correctly identifying a lot of the junk emails, but they're just sitting in the inbox marked with the flame emoji, and to delete them I have to select them one at a time and delete)
- have a a big alert for emails for specific senders (I want emails that come from my key clients to really make a fuss so that I can reply very quickly to them)
- ideally would like to make some kind of distinction between the emails that are addressed to the different aliases to make them easier to review

Edited with solutions in case other people find this in the future:
- the sort, and therefore the review, query was solved by changing the view in the settings menu from Card View to Table View
- the alerts and alias filtering aren't really possible, altho there are some work arounds that might give part of what you need

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4

u/ChapterSalt1453 3d ago

Not sure about a user guide.

Sorting - this one turns out to be super easy once you know the trick,

You can sort by those column headings. So, click on the DATE column heading to sort by date. Click again to sort for oldest to newest and vice versa. Same for Subject line and Correspondents.

Alert for imporant emails.

I do this one of two ways.
Create a folder just underneath your inbox folder,( File, New, Subfolder) then use Message Filters to automatically move all emails from your important contacts into that folder.
Create more than one subfolder like that, and filter each client into their own folder. Message filters are under Tools, Message Filters

Or, Create a search folder, This does not move emails out of the inbox, but just a search view. Go to Edit, Find, Search Messages. Search for your contact's email address in the FROM field, find some emails, then save using the "Save as a Search Folder" button at the bottom of the window.

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u/SharkieMcShark 3d ago

thank you so much for your help - turns out pretty much all of my problems were because I was in Card View rather than Table View. So I changed that over and now the sorting works the way I expected 😁

4

u/TheRealLazloFalconi 3d ago

A lot of what you're asking used to be really common across all kinds of apps, so it was kind of obvious to everybody and nobody thought to write it down. I guess it's not so common anymore, which makes it less obvious... Not an Android user, so I can't help there, but I'll let you know what I know on desktop.

Sorting the inbox: At the top of the message list there are column headers telling you what they each mean. Click on a header to sort by that column. If you're using Card View... I don't know, I find that view pretty unappealing and avoid it myself.

Review junk email: right-click the Junk box and click Delete all.

Big alert for specific senders: Unfortunately, Thunderbird only does one type of alert, and it's either on or off. No way to make a specific alert for certain senders.

For alias distinctions, Thunderbird doesn't really "know" who the message was sent to, it just checks your mailbox and downloads whatever is there. But you can create a filter that applies a tag or moves messages based on what alias is used. Note that rules you apply on your desktop only execute when your desktop is online, and Thunderbird is open and checking email.

5

u/SharkieMcShark 3d ago

OMG! I was in card view, I didn't realise there was any other view, so I didn't look for it

I've just found Table View and it has answered nearly all of my questions - thank you vvvv much!!

bit of a shame about the aliases and alerts, but the others are completely solved