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Comment by mmh0000 | Hacker News Reader

I want to use Thunderbird, but man, it's lacking some basic features. Features that used to be available via add-ons, but which stopped working somewhere around v60.

My biggest annoyances:

* Inability to easily edit the from address

-Why: I use Fastmail with 10 different custom domains and custom senders. In TB I would have to manually add in each sending domain. And TB still doesn't "remember" which -from- addresses are used by which -to- address. This used to be solved by the https://www.absorb.it/virtual-id/ . Shockingly, the Fastmail webui does have this feature.

* Inability to minimize to tray on Linux (Windows does have this feature, but that doesn't help me).

* Inconsistent notifications, sometimes you'll get one, sometimes not, who knows why.

* No easy way to tell if Thunderbird is using IMAP Push

But at least I'm glad they put an IRC client in. If there's one thing I always wanted my email client to be, it's an IRC client. (sarcasm)

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> Inability to minimize to tray on Linux

Birdtray [1] works perfectly for this. I think the only thing you have to is create a .desktop file that opens birdtray that opens Thunderbird automatically.

> Inability to easily edit the from address

There is a feature for this for quite a while. In the write message window, just click the down arrow next to 'From' and either choose a pre-configured identity [2] or click "Customize From Address" which allows you to freely edit the from address.

> And TB still doesn't "remember" which -from- addresses are used by which -to- address.

Not sure what you mean, but there is a 'Reply from this identity when delivery headers match' config in account settings. I have never used it, but it allows you to automatically choose an identity when you are replying to a email from a particular address/domain.

[1] https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray

[2] You can add many identities for each server in account settings.

> Inability to easily edit the from address

This has been possible for years. Click the From address then "Customize From Address..." and enter whatever you like. But

> And TB still doesn't "remember" which -from- addresses are used by which -to- address.

is indeed correct, and annoys me too.

You can only "Customize From Address" if the domain you're wanting to send from is added to your sending profiles. So. Yes. it's possible. But it's user-hostile.

Hmm. Do I have it right that you mean you can't send from e.g. "test@example.com" (using "Customize From Address..." then entering that address in the From field) unless another address for the domain "example.com" is set up as an account in Thunderbird (e.g. "hello@example.com")? If that's what you mean, then I don't think that's correct, as I just tried it and Thunderbird let me send the message despite me not having any account for example.com in my profile. I did of course get a response from example.com telling me there was no MX server, but that tells me Thunderbird went as far as sending it.

No I mean, I have many different domains. So if I want to send an email from example.com, I have to add it to the sending profiles. This is fine, and usually done during initial setup. However, if I want to be able to send from a second domain, say, thisdomaindoesntexistasdadasd.com I need to go and add that seperatly for allow thunderbird to allow me to put it in the from addr. Further, when sending an email, I then have to select the domain from the drop-down, then edit. it's just tedious. Not impossible to work around, but also not worth the effort when the Fastmail UI handles it so much better.

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