Open Bug 1647632 Opened 5 years ago Updated 3 months ago

Quick way to temporary hide Thunderbird mail accounts without deleting

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, enhancement)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Account Manager
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

(thunderbird_esr115 wontfix)

Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
thunderbird_esr115 --- wontfix

People

(Reporter: murznn, Unassigned)

References

(Depends on 1 open bug)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:77.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/77.0

Steps to reproduce:

I manage very many mail accounts in Thunderbird, and often need to hide some accounts from list of mail folders, and unhide them later. I think this action is needed for many users, that

Actual results:

I can't find the way to temporary disable Thunderbird Mail account, for hide it in interface, without full deleting of account and configuring again from scratch, when need to restore it.

Expected results:

Will be good to add "Active" checkbox into Thunderbird account settings, that will allow marking account as inactive, to exclude account from showing in all Thunderbird interface, and activate it again later, without configuring from scratch.

I wish this feature existed, and websearching for it suggests I'm not the only one, so I'm Just throwing in some thoughts that might hopefully be helpful.

States a user might want an account to have:

  • Enabled
    • the normal state
  • Disconnected
    • this is useful if a server is known to be temporarily or permanently offline, but the user still wants to access the local copies of their mail and folders, but doesn't want to be nagged by password prompts and error dialogues, nor lose those credentials in the sever settings
    • the user should be allowed to interact with downloaded mail, but if they reply, be warned that the reply won't actually be sent until the server is reconnected (and perhaps asked if they want to reconnect it at that time)
    • when a server is in this state, it should be made clear, e.g. with some prominent disconnected/unplugged icon, and folder names displayed differently (Feint text? Italics?). The icon should be displayed in the folder list, in the folder heading, clearly in message headers, and possibly other places. The icons should have tool tips explaining the state of the folder, and a quick tip for how to switch back to normal state
  • Hidden/Disabled
    • user might want this if they have projects they don't think they'll be dealing with any time soon, but might again in future
    • in this state, the server does not appear in the folder list, but the server settings, including login credentials, are still safely stored
    • it may be handy for this state to have additional options, for whether Thunderbird still fetches mail, still runs filters, and still notifies the user when there are new messages, e.g. a prompt that essentially says 'you've received a message on a server you apparently don't care about—do you want to see the message anyhow, unhide the server, ignore the message, or stop prompting you like this?'

(In reply to Michael Scheper from comment #1)

Sounds like good suggestions. However, probably a bit hard to implement all this.

Regarding the reporters comment 0, it is not possible to completely "hide" an existing account. You can "collapse" the account so only the account name shows, but you probably know this.

There is a way to mostly disable an account so that no network activities occurs and new messages are not polled for or retrieved. For imap server settings, uncheck these items:

  • Check for new messages at startup
  • Check for new messages every X minutes
  • Allow immediate server notification when new messages arrive

and under Junk Settings, uncheck

  • Enable adaptive junk mail controls for this account

This should prevent any automatic network activities on the account unless you expand the "hidden" account and click a folder. You can still access messages in the folder if needed and this may cause messages clicked on in the accessed folder to be fetched over the network.

This won't prevent sending messages via the SMTP server configured for the account.

Similar settings can also be used to "disable" pop accounts but I haven't experimented and verified this.

See Also: → 689067

Yes Michael, hiding all blue accounts from the list was possible, but 2 contributors stopped responding
since the miraculous webextension only supporting version of tb arrived..

  1. leon castro from greasy fork:
    https://greasyfork.org/en/discussions/requests/55814-hide-account-name-folders-icons-in-the-folder-pane-of-thunderbird

  2. aceman from mozilla, that contributed to a fix of leoncastro's addon & who ceased after his first update,
    once i asked him a latest help for a webextension version .. .

I have acemans version but it means downgrading, so it's useless.

Hiding accounts sure sounds like a niche idea that we likely wouldn't do, nor accept a patch for, but might be doable with an addon.

The other aspects are covered in bug 312619 and related bugs.

Flags: needinfo?(alessandro)

Also a user at Fosdem asked for that ability.
There's a workaround that can be achieved in a few steps in the Account Settings:

  • Uncheck all Server settings "Check for new messages..." options.
  • In Synchronization & Storage uncheck the Message Synchronization option.
    That should theoretically prevent any active server syncing and message downloading, but still keep the account active without being deleted.

As we're not gonna focus on the Account Settings this year, this is an option we want to implement next year during the rebuild of the settings.

Severity: -- → S4
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
status-thunderbird_esr115: --- → wontfix
Ever confirmed: true
Flags: needinfo?(alessandro)
Keywords: design-needed, triaged
Priority: -- → P3

Comment 6 transferred to bug 312619. Part of reporter's comment 0 is covered in that bug.

"exclude account from showing in all Thunderbird interface" is perhaps not part of that bug. So I'm marking this bug as dependent on bug 312619 and adjusting this bug summary.

Depends on: 312619
Keywords: design-needed, triaged
Priority: P3 → --
Summary: Quick way to temporary disable (mark inactive for hide and suspend) and enable Thunderbird mail accounts without deleting → Quick way to temporary hide Thunderbird mail accounts without deleting

(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] from comment #6)

Also a user at Fosdem asked for that ability.
There's a workaround that can be achieved in a few steps in the Account Settings:

  • Uncheck all Server settings "Check for new messages..." options.
  • In Synchronization & Storage uncheck the Message Synchronization option.
    That should theoretically prevent any active server syncing and message downloading, but still keep the account active without being deleted.

As we're not gonna focus on the Account Settings this year, this is an option we want to implement next year during the rebuild of the settings.

I followed the above directions, but Thunderbird is still checking for email on the affected accounts.

(In reply to howard from comment #8)

I followed the above directions, but Thunderbird is still checking for email on the affected accounts.

Also disable 'Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive' and check to see if your address book and/or calendar are trying to make connections.

Also disable 'Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive' and check to see if your address book and/or calendar are trying to make connections.

'Allow immediate server notifications' was already disabled.

I do not use the calendar and there is nothing in my address book besides a list of contact, none of whom is on any automatic notification task.

howard,
Check my instruction at comment 2 above.
The important thing is don't touch or access any folder in the "disabled" account. If you do it will cause a connection and new or existing message fetch from the server. This may explain why you say "Thunderbird is still checking for email on the affected accounts".

Another possibility is to just go into Settings | Server Settings and change the address of the server to something invalid (maybe change .com to .net). This will cause any access to the server that attempts to fetch messages to timeout. You can still access any message in the account that has already been fetched and stored locally (i.e., has been "offline stored" which is all messages by default).

Which bring up this from comment 6:

In Synchronization & Storage uncheck the Message Synchronization option.
That should theoretically prevent any active server syncing and message downloading, but still keep the account active without being deleted.

This is checked on by default and will cause all your messages to be stored locally (also called "offline store" because you can go offline and see your messages). Unchecking this or using the advanced setting and adjusting it for individual folders doesn't prevent new messages from being fetched. It only selects whether just the message header or the full message is fetched and stored. So it has no bearing on your issue.

Thank you, Gene.

I don't touch any of the folders I want disabled (except perhaps if an occasional compaction causes a "touch").

I don't want to change the address of the server so that it can be easily reactivated at any time.

I disabled message synchronization (which appears to only be available for IMAP, not POP).

I turned off adaptive junk per your earlier comment.

Hitting the Get Messages button still causes all accounts to be contacted.

Guess I'll have to wait until TBird implements a real fix.

Hitting the Get Messages button still causes all accounts to be contacted.

Hitting "Get Message" should only contact the account you are on, not all accounts. Only if you right-click it and do "Get All New Message" will it check all accounts for new mail. But if you do do "Get Messages" on the "disabled" account, TB will still contact the server.

I don't touch any of the folders I want disabled (except perhaps if an occasional compaction causes a "touch").

Compacting probably would cause an folder select (at least for imap, not sure about POP3 inbox). But not sure why you would want to compact a "disabled" account.

I disabled message synchronization (which appears to only be available for IMAP, not POP).

Yes, n/a for POP. But again, this is also n/a to the issue.

I don't want to change the address of the server so that it can be easily reactivated at any time.

Really not that hard to set or un-set it. For example if your server is "gmail.com" you can could set it to "gmail.localhost.com". Anyhow, just my opinion.

(In reply to gene smith from comment #13)

Hitting the Get Messages button still causes all accounts to be contacted.

Hitting "Get Message" should only contact the account you are on, not all accounts. Only if you right-click it and do "Get All New Message" will it check all accounts for new mail. But if you do do "Get Messages" on the "disabled" account, TB will still contact the server.

I don't hit Get Messages on a disabled account. There is a single Get Messages button on my TB menu bar, and it fetches from all accounts.

I don't touch any of the folders I want disabled (except perhaps if an occasional compaction causes a "touch").

Compacting probably would cause an folder select (at least for imap, not sure about POP3 inbox). But not sure why you would want to compact a "disabled" account.

I don't want to compact a disabled account. But the Compact Folders dropdown menu compacts all accounts.

I disabled message synchronization (which appears to only be available for IMAP, not POP).

Yes, n/a for POP. But again, this is also n/a to the issue.

Not n/a to my issue. I want to disable some POP accounts.

I don't want to change the address of the server so that it can be easily reactivated at any time.

Really not that hard to set or un-set it. For example if your server is "gmail.com" you can could set it to "gmail.localhost.com". Anyhow, just my opinion.

Interesting suggestion - thank you.

Really not that hard to set or un-set it. For example if your server is "gmail.com" you can could set it to "gmail.localhost.com". Anyhow, just my opinion.

Interesting suggestion - thank you.

I did try that, and TBird tries to lookup gmail.localhost.com.

I would suggest gmail.com.invalid, which has worked for me with other hosts. The invalid tld is reserved, so lookups will never give you anything unexpected.

(In reply to Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆] from comment #16)

I would suggest gmail.com.invalid, which has worked for me with other hosts. The invalid tld is reserved, so lookups will never give you anything unexpected.

Thank you for the suggestion, but TBird still attempts a DNS lookup for gmail.com.invalid.

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