301228 - Allow user to change default behavior of "Get Mail" toolbar button ("Get New Messages for All Accounts" vs. "Get New Messages for Current Account")

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[J Luh]

Thunderbird 1.0.5, the default behavior for clicking the Get Mail toolbar button
is to check only the selected account. To check all accounts you have to choose
Get All New Messages from the drop-down menu. It would be nice to be able to
change the default to "Get All New Messages."

Alternatively, you could add a new button to the customizable toolbar that is
identical to the Get Mail button except that its default behavior is to get all
new messages. Users could then use whichever button they prefer (or add both
buttons to their toolbars).

See also suite bug 125885.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 275575 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 274351 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Bug 275575 requested specifically that a click on Get New check only those 
accounts which are configured to check mail periodically.  (It's not clear 
whether this includes accounts that were not checked on startup and don't have 
stored passwords.)

Bug 274351 requested specifically that an account be configurable to be included 
in the list of accounts that will be checked when Get New is clicked.

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Also, see bug 125885 comment 40.

Comment 5

[mediamagnet]

I would love to see the default behaviour changed, or at least made configurable.  The current behaviour is not intuitive nor standard.

For various reasons I don't have my numerous email accounts set to check for new messages at startup or periodically, so "Get All New Messages" is one of the most common actions I want to perform in TB, and having to either do multiple mouse clicks or use a two-handed keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-Shift-T) to do it is annoying and clunky.

I think "Get All New Messages" should be the default behaviour because:
1/ It seems far more intuitive that a "Get New Messages" button should get all new messages, rather than "Get New Messages for the currently selected account or for an arbitrary account if you happen to be in local folders when you click me".
2/ "Get All New Messages" is the default behaviour for most other email clients with similar kinds of buttons.  Every user that I've managed to convince to migrate to TB has been confused by this behaviour, a couple even telling me that TB was broken because it wouldn't download their email no matter how many times they clicked the button.

I think these are strong reasons to change the default behaviour, but if that isn't done, then at least make the buttons behaviour configurable or give us a new button that Gets All New Messages so that those of us who need this functionality can get to it cleanly and efficiently.

Comment 8

[dfghjkjhg]

For the time being, here's an extension that extends the "get mail button" to "get all new mails from all accounts".
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/902/