389888 - no option to use local mail from /var/spool/mail in Linux

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 65720

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, enhancement)

Description

[ds332]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5) Gecko/20070713 Firefox/2.0.0.5
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 2.0.0.5

This isn't so much a bug as an enhancement request.
Are there any plans to add a local mail option to Thunderbird to read e-mails directly from /var/spool/mail/<username> off a mail server in Linux?
I know there's a movemail option, but using that doesn't leave the mail on the server, and IMAP and POP create a second copy of all the e-mail on the same machine if you're logged on to the server.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Thunderbird (Linux)
2. Create an e-mail account
3. No option for local mail


Expected Results:  
It would be nice if local mail from the server was an option like in Evolution, or Mutt, Pine, etc.

Comment 1

[Adam Guthrie]

Hrm... there should be a "Movemail" account option. Is "RSS News & Blog" listed as an account option?

Comment 2

[ds332]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Hrm... there should be a "Movemail" account option. Is "RSS News & Blog" listed
> as an account option?
> 

There is a Movemail option (and an RSS News & Blog option), but that actually moves the mail as opposed to reading it directly from the server. That means you can't then use POP or IMAP from a remote machine as well. A lot of programs designed for Linux (like Evolution and KMail) also have a "local mail" option to read from the server.

Comment 3

[ds332]

Actually, I guess KMail can't do this either, but Evolution can and older text-based programs like Pine and Elm use it as a default.

Comment 4

[Steve Simms]

This is a duplicate of an old request that's still open.  It's going to be time-consuming to implement, so it probably won't be a high priority, but who knows!