475307 - Synchronize Thunderbird mail database on different systems

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Ken]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648)
Build Identifier: 2.0.0.19

Scenario: Laptop and Desktop are used for Email.
Email Gets Downloaded to the Laptop and or Desktop - I would like to 
Email Merge Operation - so I can merge the disparate computers as one ..so I have the same email on both machines.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Ken]

Although there is an Import feature - I simply want to Merge/Synchronize my two machines - so that the emails that I have saved are exactly the same on both systems.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

How should the synchronize be done ?
Do you know that using an IMAP server solves your issue ?

Comment 3

[Ken]

Well IMAP would work if I had only one email account to deal with - not everyone has their own email server to simply choose IMAP - it is a bit difficult to tell an email provider to change their systems over. They tend not to listen to their customers anyway, so something major like changing the email server is most likely in the category beyond pulling teeth.

I am not sure how exactly to synchronize but if I could point to my Laptop folder where my thunderbird mail database is (in say setup parameters for synchronization) - then when I choose sync button - I can do a cross synchronization where by if it is not in Computer 1 Mail, add it in, if it is not in computer 2 db add it in, as for deletions from one or the other - obviously a record would need to be kept of deletionsand things marked as junk - so as not to add them back in. 
Or possibly a one way synchronization could be optional - I do not know if thatis of value to anybody to go one way on a sync.

Comment 4

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> difficult to tell an email provider to change their systems over. They tend not
> to listen to their customers anyway,

Better find a better provider then ;)

> so something major like changing the email
> server is most likely in the category beyond pulling teeth.

Often it's just enabling imap in the server config, no need for them to change the server.

IMAP is the way to do it at, if not you can use POP and the leave on server option. Possibly someone could use weave (bug 274840/bug 446444) to enable syncing later, but other than that, this bug isn't going anywhere, so closing.