Reason for Thunderbird usage

patriceltic · 28 Mar 2021

This may seem like a dumb question and coming from me, you know it is. I thought I had posted this question yesterday but do not see it. Anyway, what is the main function of Thunderbird? It seems that people use it as circuitry for their other email programs. Like I use Outlook - when I open Thunderbird, all of my outlook emails are there. I am hoping to use it for the export function (can't do it however without Firefox installed first) but I'm curious as to how others use it. If you already have an email program why would you need it. Thanks.
V20H2

dalchina · 28 Mar 2021

It's a mature free email client as you know. Good for people who wish to rapidly manage multiple mail accounts or prefer to store their mail on their PC rather than potentially on multiple servers.

Typically people would use just one email client. I use Thunderbird, so I have no need of the more limited Mail app. It's independent of MS- I gave up on MS after Outlook Express died and then Windows Mail did too.

I don't have Office, so I don't use Outlook.

It seems you may using Thunderbird and 1 or more other clients. I have no particular idea why people might choose to use more than one email client.

patriceltic · 28 Mar 2021

Thanks - that's kind of what I thought people used it for - to manage multiple mail accounts. I don't have Office but I do use Outlook. I am trying to export a bunch of emails off my system to an external drive and I did not have any luck using Outlook to do it. People recommended that I use Thunderbird which has an export function so that's why. Also, I would like to get away from Chrome as a browser so think I will d.l. Firefox. Time for a change - it's been Chrome forever! Thanks again.

dalchina · 28 Mar 2021

Outlook has limited export options:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-aa1c33b18833

There doesn't seem an easy route to export a lot of emails from Outlook to Thunderbird, but when I last had to deal with transferring emails between client programs I used a mail archiving program- maybe this:
MailStore Home – Free Email Archiving and Backup for Home Users

patriceltic · 28 Mar 2021

Mailstore looks like a pretty straightforward scheme. I'll d.l. it and give it a try. Thanks.

Blackink · 28 Mar 2021

I use it because I don't want to sign onto Comcast, my Internet provider, to read or send mail.
Works great and I've been using it for a few years now.

jimbo45 · 29 Mar 2021

dalchina said:

It's a mature free email client as you know. Good for people who wish to rapidly manage multiple mail accounts or prefer to store their mail on their PC rather than potentially on multiple servers.

Typically people would use just one email client. I use Thunderbird, so I have no need of the more limited Mail app. It's independent of MS- I gave up on MS after Outlook Express died and then Windows Mail did too.

I don't have Office, so I don't use Outlook.

It seems you may using Thunderbird and 1 or more other clients. I have no particular idea why people might choose to use more than one email client.

Hi there
Sometimes its worth testing different ones -- also one might be coming to the end of a Trial of a paid product e.g Ms Office in various flavours and so you need a free one.

My big issue with Thunderbird is that it's a dog to set up correctly if you have anything other than a bog standard email server and if you have different receive and send server passwords / accounts -- forget it.

Some of those automated setups are a real dog if you don't get a working opportunity to set things up manually if the "auto" system doesn't work.

Even with outlook 2019/365 it's a dog as well unless you know the get-around starting via cmd line (or run) with the /profile parameter.

BTW I still find running OUTLOOK EXPRESS on an XP VM still the simplest email client almost ever - and it never seemed to break -- would be great if that program could be incorporated back into W10 for people who don't need a whole slew of complex functions for an email client. It does exactly what it says on the tin, multiple accounts, imap,pop3, attachements so what more does one need. A minimal XP VM with just 512Mb of storage (all that's needed) will run as your email client - you don't need

Cheers
jimbo

patriceltic · 29 Mar 2021

I came across a site that recommended saving an email with "save as". I did so and saved it to one my jump drives. Worked like a charm! I don't have hundreds of these - probably about 25 or so that I can do with this method and save off my pc.
I think that should satisfy my needs regarding this situation.

dalchina · 29 Mar 2021

If you've only a very few emails, yes, you can save them as .eml files.

patriceltic · 29 Mar 2021

Yes. Think it will be fine. I do have a question regarding archiving. This process pulls the emails off of your inbox which is helpful as it can get very cluttered. When they are handled this way, are they still local as in on your pc? Or are they archived somewhere else - like the cloud or something. Thanks.