615957 - Feature Request: disable single-key shortcuts

Status: ASSIGNED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Currently Thunderbird has several single-key shortcuts for doing things with messsage, such as archive "A", mark as junk "J", etc.  While I understand the utility of these for those who use them, for many of us they are an opportunity to accidentally archive or mark up mail because we mistake the active window.  Something I have done 100's of times now, and I suspect other users have too.

As such, I'd like a Preferences item which either allows me to turn off the single-key shortcuts, or force prepending another key to them, such as "ALT".

Comment 1

[Wayne Sallee]

Yes, this is so needed.

It would also be good to know what single key commands there are and what they do so as to be able to fix them when it happens. Like when your e-mail disappeared and you don't know what happened. Single key commands like archive should never exist.

Comment 3

[fabrice.neyret]

I agree my report duplicates these old one.

Still, doesn't attaching it to a 3 years old unsolved report risk to help keeping untreated this bug highly dangerous to data ?

Comment 4

[rsx11m]

There wouldn't be any benefit in keeping separate bug reports open on the same issue, on the contrary. Duplicates are marked as such to keep all the relevant discussion in a single place.

Unfortunately, I don't think that this report will gain much traction in the future either. There was an attempt once in bug 476590 to reduce the risk of accidental archiving of messages by hitting the 'A' keyboard shortcut, which ended up with a "won't-fix" resolution (see the discussion there).

Personally, I sure support the proposal to make keyboard shortcuts configurable, and especially the single-key ones which are easy to hit accidentally.

Comment 5

[fabrice.neyret]

Ok.

BTW the attempt you mentionned as well as the discussion kept focus on "A" and only suggesting to change it to something else, or to improve undoing.
While
- there are plainty of other dangerous key (a,d,n,m,r,j...). And marking  posts or  threads as read can cause real issues as well when email deal with important issues.
- the best solution, which is also the easiest, is at least a flag to switch-off hot keys, or one-letter keys, or flag for each individual key, or to possibility edit hotkeys.
Some of these could be programmed in an afternoon, which is less than discussing about it.

- undo-ing is both an overcomplex and inappropriate solution.
  - Inappropriate because I should think of the whole sentence eaten by the msg window and how many msg operation it has generated.
   - overcomplex because un-marking as read the right messages or part of threads is probably way more complicated than undoing the creation of directories in archive (wich is not done, BTW).

Comment 6

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

I'll also point out that the only solution given for disabling the "a" shortcut was to disable archiving entirely.  This means that any user who doesn't want to archive stuff accidentally, but does want to use the archiving functionality in general, is screwed.

The same goes for the "j" key; the only way to disable it is to disable Thunderbird's antispam functionality entirely.

This is like being told that I can stop the car from backfiring by removing the engine.  True, but hardly satisfactory.

Comment 7

[kari.rummukainen]

I add my vote here, please consider adding an option either to disable single key shortcuts or adding a modifier. I like firefox, I have found it to be a robust imap client for over a decade.  The single key shortcuts are by far the main annoyance for me.  

A scenario: I am touch-typing a message, but the keyboard focus happens to be on the main Thunderbird window.  Before I notice anything amiss, half a dozen messages are randomly distributed to the deleted, junk and archives folders, I am watching a thread and ignoring another and marked it fully read.  If you are unlucky you do not even realize that something has happened.  Something like this happens to me regularly.

Features are good, only the shortcuts are a problem.  Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that overall I am a happy  Thunderbird user.

Comment 8

[u498257]

I vote for disabling all single-letter keyboard shortcuts too (or at least, having a way of configuring them).  Barely a day goes by where I don't type a sentence into the Thunderbird window instead of the window I think I'm typing in.  As I type so fast, I've usually set off a volley of 10 commands before I realise I've done untold damage to my inbox, much of which is very difficult to put right.  It also makes me swear a lot...

I've been using Thunderbird since it came out, but this one feature is seriously making me think of switching to webmail (and I really don't like webmail, it just doesn't quite work for me).

Comment 9

[Jeremy Neuerburg]

Th

Comment 10

[Jeremy Neuerburg]

This bug is a nuisance.  Not a week goes by where I start typing and just as Nick stated, a half dozen commands are trying to execute because of these single key shortcuts.  A toggle bit to enable/disable in the preferences would go a long way in resolving this.

Comment 11

[nicke.claesson]

I also accidentally use these shortcuts and find them very annoying. I think only power users wants to use them and therefore they should be optional.

Comment 12

[Jan Sever]

I also use them accidentally because of another bug in Firefox which causes that typing of a message is sometimes switched into a command mode out of my control (just typing a message and although I haven't done anything, it starts to interpret my 'n' in word 'know' as a command).

So I also vote for possibility of disabling in about:config.

Comment 13

[Jan Sever]

s/Firefox/Thunderbird/

Comment 14

[Wayne Sallee]

Whoever came up with the idea of single key commands was an idiot.

Wayne Sallee
[e-mail]

Comment 15

[Jan Sever]

Not at all. If the switching bug was resolved, I wouldn't mind it: I use 'n' with mailnews.nav_crosses_folders=0 and it's very time-saving. But I agree that it SHOULD be disabled by default, with the possibility of enabling it.

Comment 16

[Ruben]

Is there a workaround available until this is implemented?

for example, maybe you can add some commands to your pref.js like

    user_pref("keyconfig.main.xxx_key__NAME", "!][][][FUNCTION");

or a setting in about:config?

discussions about this are going on here:

http://superuser.com/questions/334191/how-can-i-customize-keyboard-shortcuts-in-thunderbird
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/141523/disable-keyboard-shortcuts-in-thunderbird

Comment 17

[Chris Hubbard]

Please provide a way to configure these.  I am constantly accidentally moving mail to archive, junk, etc and I don't want to!  I have been very happy with Thunderbird since I switched to using Linux as my desktop.  This one issue is my main beef with Thunderbird.

Comment 18

[Jan Sever]

Any progress? As I wrote at https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=519222, these shortcuts are extremely dangerous. It's really frustrating that after almost 4 years there's no solution. Is it so hard?

We don't discuss about changing general behaviour, affecting multiple users, but just about possibility to change it in about:config. I strongly agree with Nick Lee in Comment 8 about looking for another mail client, which is not an easy decision. Can you please persuade us that Thunderbird is worthy its name?

Comment 19

[Ruben]

[Keyconfig](http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=72994) is a plugin that allows you to configure keyboard shortcuts.

To install you have to right-click on the first word in the (very old) first forum post "keyconfig" in the linked forum from "April 30th, 2004" and install the .xpi file in thunderbirds add-ons "as file"

The link in that old post was updated when needed and still works (tested in Thunderbird 33)

Comment 20

[Jan Sever]

Well, I meant solution supported and endorsed by Mozilla; but you're right, that's some way. As for the list of shortcuts, Wayne Sallee asked for, they're listed at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts.

Comment 21

[elic]

I have convinced some of my colleagues to start using Thunderbird and overall the response has been good, but they do keep losing messages when they accidentally type 'a', 'j' or 'k' into the message window.

If this keeps happening they are going to get fed up with Thunderbird and will be asking for a new mail client which would be a real shame as I find Thunderbird to be excellent otherwise.

Comment 22

[Wayne Sallee]

Thanks  Jan Sever.

Wayne Sallee
[e-mail]

(In reply to Jan Sever from comment #20)
> Well, I meant solution supported and endorsed by Mozilla; but you're right,
> that's some way. As for the list of shortcuts, Wayne Sallee asked for,
> they're listed at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts.

Comment 23

[Ruben]

There is now an extension to disable Ctrl+Q:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/disable-ctrl-q-shortcut/

Maybe the same way you could create an extension to disable all single key shortcuts

Comment 24

[rsx11m]

That's not a "single-key" shortcut, though (and btw only works on Linux given that Windows doesn't use this shortcut for "Quit").

Comment 25

[JoWestla]

Just added my vote here. Its pretty annoying if you have to search all your vanished mails everytime you accidently type into the wrong window (which happens often to me, sadly)

Comment 26

[Maketsi]

+1

This is one of the most stupid, most dangerous and most annoying anti-personnel mines in Thunderbird.

Single-key shortcuts that make ANY kind of changes to ANY data are like allowing web-application to receive data modification requests via GET parameters (img href=/delete?user=admin) without any kind of verifications.

I have multiple times moved random messages to archive/junk/blackhole by starting typing and noticing that the wrong window is active. The worst thing is that the user does not see what happened, besides the mail client refreshing the window and throwing the previously active mail away.

This is one of those few features that makes me want to get another email client, while crying for mercy.

And no, I don't want to install some obsolete and random addon for fixing this. It should be the other way around: if you want these kind of features, you install that damn addon to change the app behaviour to more unstable state.

Comment 27

[u498257]

This feature is still annoying me, but I have found a way of making undoing the damage easier when you accidentally type in the Thunderbird window and watch in dismay as messages disappear:

- swear
- click on Tools menu
- click on Activity Manager
- sigh in relief as you see the list of recent actions on Inbox
- manually put it all right
- add your voice to this page in the hope that someday someone will disable these stupid single-key shortcuts by default

Comment 28

[Roy Gregson]

BTW, Keyconfig seems to be endorsed by Mozilla now as it's available on the same page they list what the shortcuts are: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts#w_customizing-keyboard-shortcuts

I completely agree that single-key shortcuts are an insanely stupid concept - especially for a program that was made to be typed into! Also, it's ludicrous that those responsible for maintaining Thunderbird's otherwise excellent reputation have failed to make an appropriate change for 4+ years. The change SHOULD be to have options to dis-/enable and edit. An add-on is a backwards approach. This should be standard. I don't understand how a major piece of software came to be released WITHOUT this option.

Comment 30

[Joshua Coleman]

I can't believe this is still an issue...  As it stands right now this feature is an annoyance and beyond. Someday is not good enough... this should be a simple fix so what's the hold-up?  I know the problem is not people clamoring for more of these retarded shortcuts...  I'm falling 'out of love' with you Thunderbird due to this simple yet disgusting problem and we've been together so long... Get this fixed, add options or an add-on or we're breaking up... That's right you heard me, a DIVORCE!

For goodness sakes help us PLEASE!

Comment 31

[Wayne Sallee]

Maybe Thunderbird needs to be forked.

Wayne Sallee
[e-mail]

Comment 32

[rsx11m]

Sure, go ahead. As long as you stay within MPL licensing specs, that's certainly permissible. Obviously, finding a satisfactory solution here or in bug 581545 would be more desirable.

Comment 33

[Jesper Dam]

(In reply to Wayne Sallee from comment #31)
> Maybe Thunderbird needs to be forked.
> 
> Wayne Sallee
> [e-mail]

Why? Is there any indication that Mozilla wouldn't accept a patch to fix this issue?

If no one's willing to work on fixing this problem, then forking isn't going to help.

Comment 34

[yoqoylpr]

Multi-core CPUs with GHz clock frequencies still aren't fast enough to reliably process key presses from a user. When you e.g. press Alt+Tab and expect focus to switch from Thunderbird to a different program, and start typing, suddenly Thunderbird is doing all sorts of crazy stuff in response to your typing because the Alt+Tab wasn't registered or processed yet when you started typing. Single-key shortcuts would be dangerous enough if computers were fast enough to process keyboard input, but until they are, the idea of single-key shortcuts is just plainly insane. Please fix this asap. Improved undo and other workarounds are workarounds and not fixes.

Comment 35

[fabrice.neyret]

For some applications incompatible with clipboard (java, rdesktop) a classical way is to use a script reinjecting the clipboard into key events.

These last months I just have lost HUNDREDS of professional and personnal emails because the mouse slighlty entered the wrong thunderbird area during the pseudo-pasting.  ( + you can't undo "marking message/thread as read").

Really I can't believe TB got totally stuck and autistics on so many basic key issues for so long years now.
It really feels like the project is now doomed. :-(   
But I'm trapped with all this suffering by lack of powerful cross-platform replacement compatible with intense use (but TB is no longer really working well with intense massive use).

Comment 36

[fabrice.neyret]

Jesper wrote:
> Why? Is there any indication that Mozilla wouldn't accept a patch to fix this issue?

seems that it's no longer done for so many long-lasting issues. Hours of debating in these forums is just leading to nothing. :-(
 
> If no one's willing to work on fixing this problem, then forking isn't going to help.

not false. :-(

Comment 37

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Please, we don't need any more "me too" or "I can't believe this hasn't been fixed!" comments. Those don't help development in any way. Thunderbird is developed 100% by volunteers now, and we can't possibly find the time to work on every feature request that's been reported (There are literally hundreds and hundreds of open bugs).

This is non-trivial to implement, and it may be quite some time before the core team has the means to fix it. However, we're always open to patches from anyone and would be glad to help out here or on IRC (#maildev @ irc.mozilla.org).

Comment 38

[james_wadsley]

I am new to thunderbird.  I have been using it for a week.  I use windows, linux and MacOSX regularly so a cross-platform mail solution was appealing.

Please create a preference to disable all shortcut keys when browsing mail folders.

I consider any mail changing hotkeys a terrible idea for something with pop-up edit windows where mouse focus is not 100% obvious/reliable.   I googled my way here because I accidentally deleted an email (hopefully just one because I noticed this time and knew to look for a hole in my inbox).  Now I am here I am horrified to discover a whole mess of keys that accidentally hitting will cause damage to my inbox.  Undo is a poor fix because you have to notice.  No accidental changes to my inbox is primary for me -- above all other features.  I will reluctantly go back to squirrelmail, pine and/or terminals to avoid this.  If anyone can recommend a similar solution to thunderbird without this problem I'd appreciate it.

Comment 39

[james_wadsley]

I have found the solution:  Dorando keyconfig
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/dorando-keyconfig/

After a couple of weeks fishing emails out of trash I finally turned off one key delete, archive and all the other bugs.  Note that these hot key issues are so easy to be burned by.  You are searching or writing a message or even working (you thought) in another window but mouse focus somehow gets to the email list and BAM! -- any number of important emails quietly disappear.  Trlkly deserves a medal.

PLEASE make keyconfig a core feature.

Comment 40

[Rik]

Voted, because it also happend to me many times to press a key by accident and emails disappear and I don't even know what was the key involved. Most of the time, at least when I figure out that something happened, I  use CTRL-Z to restore the situation.

A single key shortcut is a very bad/dangerous idea (never seen in any other product I know) so could be nice to have an option (about:config is sufficient) to disable such "feature".

Comment 41

[Chris Hubbard]

I stopped using Thunderbird due to this bug.

Comment 42

[u498257]

> This is non-trivial to implement, and it may be quite some time before the
> core team has the means to fix it. However, we're always open to patches
> from anyone and would be glad to help out here or on IRC (#maildev @
> irc.mozilla.org).

How on Earth can reading from about:config and simply not running the demented single-key handler that deletes e-mails, etc., be non-trivial?  If the code is that complicated that nobody can find the single-key handlers then the whole project is doomed.

I would look for it myself, but even getting the project to compile seems a massive headache.

Comment 43

[Rik]

It happened again! :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(
I was typing the password in the foreground for the Mint Update and Thunderbird intercepted all the keys making a complete mess that CTRL+Z can't fix!!!

Please, someone remove this f* s* called "feature"!
It is more dangerous than a virus.

Comment 44

[joschu]

Sorry, but I also registered to add weight to this issue with another 'me too' comment.
It causes a lot of support-tickets in my IT.
PLEASE FIX THAT with an appropriate pref or other configuration.
Thank you very much. Thunderbird is great.

Comment 45

[Elhem Enohpi]

I've updated the official Thunderbird help docs to point to the working version of the Dorando Keyconfig addon, as well as Menu Wizard, and to mention disabling single-key shortcuts with them. Hopefully that will help a little.

Another thing that would help is to get Dorando Keyconfig fully reviewed. Currently it's "preliminarily reviewed / marked as experimental", which means it's not possible to search for it in the Thunderbird addon manager. Well, you can search for it, but you won't find it... If anyone can help out with that process, please head over to https://github.com/trlkly/dorando-keyconfig

On the other hand, Menu Wizard does show up if you search Addons Manager for "keyboard shortcuts", yet we still have people unaware that there's a work-around. Menu Wizard has its own issues though.

Maybe someone could make a simple modified version of Dorando Keyconfig with no UI, that just disables all the single-key shortcuts? Unfortunately I'm not able to do that myself. Barring someone stepping up to add the feature to Thunderbird itself, I'd suggest shipping such an addon with it.

I would have stopped using Thunderbird years ago, if it wasn't for keyconfig. I think the single-key shortcuts should be considered a power-user option, disabled by default. I'd classify being unable to disable them as a critical/dataloss bug.

Comment 46

[fabrice.neyret]

It's keen of you, but counting on addons to solve these kind of problems is not the best idea. For instance after each Thunderbird release addons are desactivated for a while.

Comment 47

[fabrice.neyret]

Remark: I put this post 6 years ago, together with some others about as bad bugs (e.g. the html editor, and more).
It so sad to see that nothing has changed since:  Thunderbird seems to no longer be able not even to evolve but to simply solve its very bad problems. :-(

Comment 49

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

I just archived 766 messages from my inbox accidentally, just by pressing some wrong keys in a row (probably Ctrl+A and then A?).

I love "J" for "Junk" and have used it a lot, but from a good UX point of view I really don't think single-key shortcuts should exist by default. Perhaps if Thunderbird ever got to support shortcut reassignment, they should be allowed, but I don't think such potentially destructive behaviour should be in by default.

Comment 50

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

By the way, for those who aren't using Archiving feature at all – you can disable it per account in account settings → Copies & Folders.

Comment 51

[Wayne Sallee]

Great tip Rimas !
Just make sure and get anything that is in the archive folder before you do this, as the contents will be deleted!

After changing the settings, restart Thunderbird.

Now test it by pressing the (a) on an unimportant e-mail.

Wayne Sallee
[e-mail]
http://www.WayneSallee.com

Comment 52

[Rik]

It will come first the era of the robots than a fix to TB shortcuts... but at least I'll put a robot to manage with the dangerous keys. :-)

Comment 53

[Ruben]

If you want to have this changed, you can donate to this issue at https://www.bountysource.com/issues/3496829-feature-request-disable-single-key-shortcuts

Comment 54

[Ruben]

I added a Request to change all Single click buttons with one click in the dorando-keyconfig addon at https://github.com/trlkly/dorando-keyconfig/issues/12

Comment 55

[Elhem Enohpi]

Beware that Dorando Keyconfig stopped working in Thunderbird 57 beta. Single-key shortcuts will be re-enabled, so be careful where you're typing, or you could accidentally change things or delete e-mails, as happened to me. I think this underscores the need for a built-in setting to disable these shortcuts.

There's a preliminary fix for Keyconfig (unsigned) at the Github repository, see https://github.com/trlkly/dorando-keyconfig/issues/18 - I hope it can be added to addons.mozilla.org soon.

Unfortunately, the current Thunderbird 58 beta broke even the fixed version of Keyconfig (and many other addons). See bug 1414398. I think that should be fixed in the next release of Thunderbird 58 beta, at which point the fixed version of Keyconfig should work again.

Comment 56

[Elhem Enohpi]

Fyi, a new version of Dorando Keyconfig is now available on AMO, thanks to Jonathan Kamens. Also, it's no longer "experimental", so you can find it easily with a search from within Thunderbird. It's working in all versions of Thunderbird - at least until support for non-restartless addons is dropped, which apparently will happen soon...

Comment 57

[Owl575]

Hi, I am using thunderbird right now, with Enigmail. Before I can read any emails I have to enter a password. it's company policy. Because the password box isn't in scope, the password goes into the background application - thunderbird, and it causes all the emails to be marked as unread, some messages to be flagged as urgent for all I know some messages to be deleted. I have no way of knowing and this happens every morning. It's literally the most frustrating and annoying feature i've come across in any piece of software for as long as I can remember. 

Please can you disable single key shortcuts. 

Not in some plugin.
Not in some 3rd party application. 
Not in some complicated option.

IN THUNDERBIRD. BY DEFAULT.

thank you.

Comment 58

[Owl575]

As a further update, i am definitely accidently deleting emails due to this bug. Please please please PLEASE fix this. This is infuriating.

Comment 59

[Erik Blake]

Since the release of TB68, the developers of all the add-ons that can fix this issue (Dorando keyconfig, etc.) have given up trying to make their add-ons compatible. Note that these are the solutions recommended by TB (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts#w_customize-or-disable-keyboard-shortcuts). My upgrade to TB68 reverted the disabling of all single-character key shortcuts.

Because TB is so very sloppy about what window has focus (and indeed randomly changes which window has focus), this is very annoying. It causes confusion and loss of data. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=738249, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498725, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1060754, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=942610 - there are many related bugs all complaining about random changes in focus and the impact on typed text being mistaken for commands.

The very concept of single-key commands is ill-advised, though I'm sure there are some few users who like them. But there has to be a simple way to disable them without resorting to add-ons that keep getting out-of-date.

This issue is currently 9 years old!

Comment 60

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Erik,

At this point, there are no paid developers working on Thunderbird, except for security patches. The only way this is going to get fixed is if some developer launches a gofundme to pay them to do the work. I'll contribute.

Comment 61

[witrak]

(In reply to [:jberkus] Josh Berkus from comment #60)

Erik,
At this point, there are no paid developers working on Thunderbird, except for security patches. The only way this is going to get fixed is if some developer launches a gofundme to pay them to do the work. I'll contribute.

If it is really so, then the information that users shouldn't rely on Thunderbird anymore and should start looking for an alternative is vital and have to be provided in the appropriate places, including documentation/support pages!

I say if, but unfortunately, I'm sure that the reason isn't a result of lack of financial support (as it is a rather new situation to the Thunderbird), what can clearly come from the fact that the bug in question is 9 years old! During this time I saw multiple cases of new "useful" features added to the Thunderbird (and - to be honest - many real features and bug fixes, too), however in many (too many) cases relatively simple patches weren't done because there was no true maintaining effort (at least in areas when it is difficult to get recognition).
I understand that to find all places where a keystroke can be interpreted as a command in a huge codebase to apply a simple patch disabling (completely!) the interpretation of the keystroke isn't easy. More, it isn't something that brings a lot of credit. But it doesn't seem like a task for two or three weeks!
So if there's a real problem - users ask for help and have reasonable arguments, what exactly is the case here (see all desperate requests above and Erik Blake summary https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615957#c59) and it isn't something that may disappear by itself - then it is only matter of proper management to assign proper "human resources" and help create at least a stopgap if not a final solution...
I don't believe that it was not possible to fix this when there still were funds...

Comment 62

[Jon B]

This is so frustrating, and you've been killing off so much extension functionality that there are no longer any add-ons that can fix this problem. Why, Mozilla? Why are your products so poor quality compared to a decade ago? :(

:(

Comment 63

[Rik]

Now TB is no more proper Mozilla, it is "MZLA Technologies Corporation". However this ridiculous "feature" :-/ was actually conceived by Mozilla ages ago.

Comment 64

[Wayne Sallee]

I downgraded Thunderbird to version 60.9.1
And I have updates turned off.

Wayne Sallee
xxx removed private information

Comment 65

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

We'd probably need bug 57805 for this request to happen. And so far Firefox hasn't implemented it.

(In reply to [:jberkus] Josh Berkus from comment #60)

At this point, there are no paid developers working on Thunderbird,

It doesn't affect the outcome for this bug, but in the interest of accuracy this hasn't been true for a few years.
More interesting perhaps, is that the add-ons community is today significantly more organized that it was a few months ago.

Also, many addons which were abandoned by their author have been revived by a newcomer, or the author was encouraged by the progress to resume support of the addon.

Comment 67

[Eugene Savitsky]

I'm ready to donate 50 € to Tb, for fixing this bug.

This is a really dataloss bug.

Comment 68

[GDPR]

For the exact same reasons people have been saying in the past 10 years,
I also would love if Thunderbird allowed to disable all these shortcuts.

Many times I want to type something in the Search box, but when I clicked on it, it didn't assume my click (possibly because I missed the field), and when I start typing my search query, I'm marking my messages as junk, archiving them, putting Stars, jumping to next message/thread, watching/unwatching threads, marking as read/unread, and God knows what else...

Comment 70

[GDPR]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from bug 1650997)

Where exactly are you clicking that it fails? And does the UI adequately indicate the field is clicked when you are successful? (In other words, is there a clear distinction between success and failure?)

I "work fast", so I quickly click on the Search field, but sometimes I just missed it (clicked close to it, but not exactly on it).
It's very rare cases, but it does happen sometimes.
When it does, and I start typing my search query quickly, I start doing all kind of things against my messages.

Simply, having one-key shortcuts is just a bad idea. I don't know of ANY other program that does it.
Shortcuts should always be together with the Ctrl key.

Comment 71

[Eugene Savitsky]

Exactly the same happens to me. Missed, mispressed CTRL-Shift-K, started to write and all goes bad:
to archive, undead, next message etc, whatever single button does.

That's because I offer to donate 50.- € changing this.

Comment 72

[slawther]

1). Main issue - Click on the quicksearch box then start typing, not realising that the cursor hasn't appeared in the search box, then the letters typed start destroying the emails - To me it feels like this got worse a year or so ago

2). (Because I'm running dual monitor)... Some other program show a flashing text cursor even when not in focus, leading me to believe I'm in that program, when in fact the focus is Tb - This is not Thunderbird's fault, but the damage is done to the emails in Tb.

3). This is just a gut feeling (I can't prove it and I could be totally wrong with this)... sometimes I think the quicksearch box loses focus for an instant when Tb downloads emails or does other background tasks.

For me, the issue would be 99.9% sorted if there was a option to disable single key shortcuts (even if just alphanumeric)

Been trying to get others at work onto Tb, but I know they are would hit this issue even more than me (based on having to help them find menus, toolbars etc. that have gone wandering)

AFAIK MS Outlook does not use any single key alphanumeric shortcut for an action - just for altering the screen view in some way, so not destructive.

Can donations be ring-fenced to an particular bug?

Comment 73

[Martin Vicar]

I'm also occasionally frustrated with this akward bug when start typing with bad cursor placement or window focus.
Some shortcuts (go to next message...) are only anoying, but shortcuts managing the e-mails are perilous.

Comment 74

[witrak]

Ten years and no improvement. Congrats Thunderbird Team! ;-)
And seriously: if it isn't possible to correct this ugly design bug, perhaps there's a way to make quick and dirty patch selectively blocking the most dangerous cases like "k" etc. (in about:config)?

Comment 75

[Wayne Sallee]

(In reply to witrak from comment #74)

Ten years and no improvement. Congrats Thunderbird Team! ;-)
And seriously: if it isn't possible to correct this ugly design bug, perhaps there's a way to make quick and dirty patch selectively blocking the most dangerous cases like "k" etc. (in about:config)?

Actually there is an add-on that does just that.
Unfortunately, recent Thunderbird updates killed it.

Wayne Sallee
[e-mail]

Comment 76

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

This is now my oldest open bug against any OSS project. Not sure how to feel about that.

Comment 77

[berndfinger]

All my marked as unread emails are now marked as read ("shift-c"). Fortunately, I also had marked them as important so the information is not really lost. Also I was able to unarchive the archived emails ("a") and, after about half an hour, un-ignore a thread which I had accidentally marked as ignore ("k").
So I want to get rid of most of the single keystroke commands (which I believe can be useful in text only mail clients or in mail clients which do not have a quick search bar).
I was able to disable all single key commands (plus two more in combination with shift) by commenting out related lines in
comm/mail/locales/en-US/chrome/messenger/messenger.dtd, as follows:
<!-- <!ENTITY archiveMsgCmd.key "a"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY markThreadAsReadCmd.key "r"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY markReadByDateCmd.key "c"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY markAllReadCmd.key "c"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY markStarredCmd.key "S"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY markAsJunkCmd.key "j"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY markAsNotJunkCmd.key "j"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY killThreadMenu.key "k"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY killSubthreadMenu.key "k"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY watchThreadMenu.key "w"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY nextMsgCmd.key "f"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY nextUnreadMsgCmd.key "n"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY nextUnreadThread.key "t"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY prevMsgCmd.key "b"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY prevUnreadMsgCmd.key "p"> -->
<!-- <!ENTITY tagCmd0.key "0"> -->

and the related lines in comm/mail/base/content/mainKeySet.inc.xhtml:
<!-- <key id="key_toggleFlagged" key="&markStarredCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_markAsFlagged');"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_markJunk" key="&markAsJunkCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_markAsJunk');"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_markNotJunk" key="&markAsNotJunkCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_markAsNotJunk');"
modifiers="shift"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_markAllRead" key="&markAllReadCmd.key;"
oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_markAllRead');" modifiers="shift"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_markThreadAsRead" key="&markThreadAsReadCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_markThreadAsRead')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_markReadByDate" key="&markReadByDateCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_markReadByDate')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_nextMsg" key="&nextMsgCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_nextMsg')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_nextUnreadMsg" key="&nextUnreadMsgCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_nextUnreadMsg')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_nextUnreadThread" key="&nextUnreadThread.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_nextUnreadThread')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_previousMsg" key="&prevMsgCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_previousMsg')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_previousUnreadMsg" key="&prevUnreadMsgCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_previousUnreadMsg')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_archive" key="&archiveMsgCmd.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_archive')"/> -->
<!-- <key id="key_watchThread" key="&watchThreadMenu.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_watchThread')" /> -->
<!-- <key id="key_killThread" key="&killThreadMenu.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_killThread')" /> -->
<!-- <key id="key_killSubthread" key="&killSubthreadMenu.key;" oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_killSubthread')" modifiers="shift" /> -->
<!-- <key id="key_tag0" key="&tagCmd0.key;" modifiers="shift any"
oncommand="goDoCommand('cmd_removeTags');"/> -->

I vote for disabling the single keystroke commands for now (and maybe enable them after it is possible to disable them via a Thunderbird configuration setting).

Before being able to offer a patch, I first have to read and understand the pages below https://developer.thunderbird.net/thunderbird-development/fixing-a-bug , and also test the patching process.

So if anyone else wants to build and offer a patch, ...

BTW The initial build of Thunderbird took more than an hour on my laptop but building it again after I made these changes took less than 30 seconds.

Comment 78

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

I came across the "tbkeys-lite" addon, which allows to unset key bindings for Thunderbird 68, until they are disabled by default (as common sense would require for modern computer usage).

Comment 79

[GDPR]

SWEET!! tbkeys-lite works like a charm. Thank you so much for this suggestion.

Unbelievable that we still have to rely on addons to remove these shortcuts...

Comment 80

[GDPR]

You can paste the following into the settings box of "tbkeys-lite" to really completely disable all one-letter shortcuts:

{
"0": "unset",
"1": "unset",
"2": "unset",
"3": "unset",
"4": "unset",
"5": "unset",
"6": "unset",
"7": "unset",
"8": "unset",
"9": "unset",
"j": "unset",
"k": "unset",
"o": "unset",
"f": "unset",
"#": "unset",
"r": "unset",
"a": "unset",
"x": "unset",
"c": "unset",
"u": "unset",
"b": "unset",
"m": "unset",
"p": "unset",
"s": "unset",
"t": "unset",
"w": "unset",
"]": "unset",
"[": "unset"
}

(taken from one of the reviews)

Comment 81

[Frederick Zhang]

tbkeys-lite works on TB 78 as well! Yay!

Comment 83

[tero gusto]

I have gotten so used to the "Search when you type" feature in Firefox that I sometimes accidentally start typing in an open Thunderbird email, to search in it and as a result, messages are moved, archived, marked as junk, etc. where ideally, nothing should have happened.

The majority of Thunderbird users probably don't use the single key feature. Developers and super users of course do, but they are probably in the minority, in that way.

For the ordinary user, these single key shortcuts can be quite annoying, since you don't really know if important emails were deleted, marked as junk and moved or something else. And backtracking afterwards is near to impossible, to clean up after the damage is done.

My suggestion is to set single key shortcuts to disabled by default, yet allowing super users to enable single key shortcuts, either by adding this option under "Settings", disabled by default:

[ ] Enable single key shortcuts

... alternatively by adding a line in pref.js as previously suggested in this issue.

You can unset shortcuts with the tbkeys-lite add-on, but that forces the user to grant full access to the computer, which has security implications. Also, configuring tbkeys-lite isn't exactly a simple thing to do, whereas adding or removing a check mark is.

Comment 84

[witrak]

(In reply to tero gusto from comment #83)

My suggestion is to set single key shortcuts to disabled by default, yet allowing super users to enable single key shortcuts, either by adding this option under "Settings", disabled by default:

[ ] Enable single key shortcuts

... alternatively by adding a line in pref.js as previously suggested in this issue.

You can unset shortcuts with the tbkeys-lite add-on, but that forces the user to grant full access to the computer, which has security implications. Also, configuring tbkeys-lite isn't exactly a simple thing to do, whereas adding or removing a check mark is.

Any method allowing blocking the "feature" would be OK if only doesn't lead to unnecessary negative security implications, in this case - adding an extension. Thus the proposal of berndfinger in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615957#c77 seems to be reasonable.

Pity that for 2 years nobody from developers tried to use it...

Comment 85

[Erik Blake]

As I've mentioned above, this issue with single-character commands wouldn't be so serious if TB was well-behaved in terms of which window/dialog has focus.

Unfortunately, TB still (I'm on 91.10.0) has a nasty habit of randomly changing the focus - you can be composing an email, and be in the middle of typing, when suddenly the main TB window gets focus and your typing starts going to the main window, issuing the dreaded single-character commands.

It's really unfathomable why these commands are there.

Comment 86

[GDPR]

@Erik Blake - that focus issue doesn't happen to me, and this single-character commands issue is still an issue to me.
Gladly, the extension "tbkeys-lite" fixes the issue for me.

I disabled all single-character keys, except for "m" (Mark as Read), which is the only one I use, and if I ever do it accidentally, it's not a big issue (easy fix, doesn't delete emails or archive them, or initiates a rocket launch, etc)

{
"0": "unset",
"1": "unset",
"2": "unset",
"3": "unset",
"4": "unset",
"5": "unset",
"6": "unset",
"7": "unset",
"8": "unset",
"9": "unset",
"j": "unset",
"k": "unset",
"o": "unset",
"f": "unset",
"#": "unset",
"r": "unset",
"a": "unset",
"x": "unset",
"c": "unset",
"u": "unset",
"b": "unset",
"p": "unset",
"s": "unset",
"t": "unset",
"w": "unset",
"]": "unset",
"[": "unset"
}

Comment 87

[witrak]

(In reply to GDPR from comment #86)

Gladly, the extension "tbkeys-lite" fixes the issue for me.

Hopefully, do you know anything about the security/privacy audit of the extension? There's no information on the extension page so besides a little too difficult configuration of the extension (you don't provide any info on the subject, too) one can have doubts related to this side of the problem.

Comment 88

[GDPR]

I don't know anything about it, other than that it works. Of course I'd prefer Thunderbird to implement this natively.

The extension seems to be open source anyway: https://github.com/wshanks/tbkeys
(the GitHub page is linked in the extension page)

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/tbkeys-lite/

Comment 89

[GDPR]

In the GitHub page, you have "Security, privacy, and implementation" section.
I don't see why giving a 1 star review just because of the lack of that section in the extension page.
Extensions could well just say "we're all safe and respect privacy", and yet behaving like a spyware...

1 star reviews will just demotivate the developer and then whenever Thunderbird decides to break extensions' compatibility once again, the developer may not feel motivated to spend time on fixing it.
I'm glad this extension exists.

Comment 90

[Fabrice.Neyret]

Relying on extensions for basic and crucial stuff ( including some that used to be part of the core ) is very bad, since extensions are periodically invalidated at each thunderbird release.

• in the case of key shortcut invalidators or editors, this means that suddenly the default (so wrong) behavior is back.
• if the extension's programmer is no longer there, or slow to update, the nasty default behavior fix is gone.

Now, I wonder if thunderbird is still really maintained or in development, seeing crucial problems like the so broken html editor and so simple to fix shortcut problem unsolved for decades.

Comment 91

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I think we have pretty much exhausted suggestions of how to implement this, none of which has resulted in actual code, which is ultimately the purpose of these bug reports - versus complaints about add-ons, presumed simplicity of implmentation, random discussion, comments about unrelated bugs, etc. which is not within the purpose of this bug report. Therefore, with apologies to those of you who have contributed useful information, I am restricting further comments.

There have in fact been discussions amongst developers as to how this might be done, and it is something the developers plan to tackle., but it was not possible to do this for version 102.

Comment 93

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Good to see that https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/tbkeys-lite/ is still an option for version 115.

Comment 94

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Note that this issue has now gotten much worse, because tbkeys is no longer supported as of TB 128. So there is once again, no way to block the single-key shortcuts.

Comment 95

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Ed reports these work for him on Windows

• tbkeys - https://github.com/wshanks/tbkeys/releases
• tbkeys-lite - https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/tbkeys-lite

Comment 96

[ahowlett]

(In reply to [:jberkus] Josh Berkus from comment #0)

Currently Thunderbird has several single-key shortcuts for doing things with
messsage, such as archive "A", mark as junk "J", etc. While I understand
the utility of these for those who use them, for many of us they are an
opportunity to accidentally archive or mark up mail because we mistake the
active window. Something I have done 100's of times now, and I suspect
other users have too.

As such, I'd like a Preferences item which either allows me to turn off the
single-key shortcuts, or force prepending another key to them, such as "ALT".

I have the same problem in 2025. I think I am using a different app and accidentally type shortcuts into Thunderbird that make it do lots of things before I realise I have the wrong window. I then don't know what I did, and don't know what I need to do to reverse it.

Comment 97

[jake]

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner] from comment #37)

Please, we don't need any more "me too" or "I can't believe this hasn't been
fixed!" comments.

This is non-trivial to implement

Surely it is straightforward. Just disable all single-stroke key shortcuts by default, and add option to enable them for those that want.

Comment 98

[jake]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #65)

We'd probably need bug 57805 for this request to happen. And so far Firefox hasn't implemented it.

No we don't. Firefox does not have such ridiculous existing keyboard shortcuts, and even if it did, would unlikely result in loss of data (being a browser rather than email client), so that issue is unlikely to be addressed anytime soon in Firefox.

All that is needed is

• Disable all single-key or Shift+key keyboard shortcuts by default;
• Provide option to re-enable them.

I'd be happy without the option to re-enable.

Comment 100

[Fabrice.Neyret]

15 years that this basic and dangerous "bug" is still there !
No, this does not require full key customisation to that, especially if it's a gas plant solution never implemented.
→ We just need a basic key-modifier like CTRL, as done in all applications (this modifier possibly customizable if you really wish, but that's just a cherry that shouldn't justify waiting any more year). And not in an extension but in the core.

( Seeing this 15 years simple basic problem unsolved, I guess we'll never see the html editor repaired, which is so much more crucial for a mailer... :-( )

Comment 101

[Hades]

Firefox introduced "about:keyboard" but it is still in alpha / beta phase but available in release client. I think it would be worth it if TB also take use of this and adapt it for TB keyboard shortcuts.

Comment 102

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Today I've accidentally put a thing onto my keyboard, it lied on the spacebar, and for 3 seconds it marked lots of messages as read :(
Has happened to me several times in the past.
And it also happened when I tried to enter text while I was focused on the wrong window.
I think this bug needs a fix.

I've had also friends complain about that to me in the past, and they asked for a way to turn that off.
I think we should make that possible.

I happened to have a day off today, but ended up spending the majority of it finding a fix.

I suggest a pragmatic fix, without UI changes, that is less work than a full flexible configuration UI. Given the age of this bug, I suggest something simple, that only works with hidden prefs initially.
(If desired, we could expose that as checkboxes in the pref UI in a follow-up step.)

I wasn't aware that we already had a pref for the spacebar advance. I think it makes sense to keep that configuration switch independently, but I think it also makes sense to have a global switch to disable the single character presses, and I think it should cover the spacebar advance, too.

I'm attempting to move this bug forward, because as I understand, so far nobody was able to do the work.

The patch, and the text that follows below, was created with help from AI.

The patch I'm about to attach adds hidden preferences (about:config only, no UI) to stop accidental triggering of the mail window's bare single-key shortcuts (a=archive, k=ignore thread, the tag keys, message navigation, etc.), which fire from stray keypresses when focus lands in the wrong place. Behavior is unchanged by default; users opt in.

There are three modes via two prefs:

• Completely off (mail.character_shortcuts.enabled=false)
• Plain (default) — today's behavior, single keypress fires the shortcut.
• Lead-in required (mail.character_shortcuts.use_lead_in_keypress=true) — the shortcut fires only just after a "lead-in" chord, Ctrl+a configurable character (mail.character_shortcuts.lead_in_control_key, default .), within a short period of time. This keeps the shortcuts available but unreachable by accident.

Spacebar "advance to next message" follows the same primary switch; Delete/Backspace and Enter have their own independent on/off prefs. Menus, toolbar buttons, and any modifier-based shortcuts are unaffected throughout.

Deliberately chosen Configuration limits: the lead-in is always Ctrl + one character, and that character must be a single non-whitespace character (empty, multi-character, or whitespace values are treated as "completely off" and logged as a warning to the Error Console, once per window). We do not restrict it to ASCII (international/non-Latin single characters are fine), and we do not check it against existing shortcuts — choosing a sane, non-conflicting key (e.g. not Ctrl+Q) is left to the user. The default . was picked because it seems unbound in the mail window and Firefox and is layout-independent.

Why was it implemented like this and not differently?

The naive approach could be a single global keydown listener that swallows the keys (what the tbkeys add-on seems to do via Mousetrap).
The reasons this wasn't done here:
(a) in the 3-pane the message list lives in the about:3pane child document, and a chrome-window key listener doesn't even receive those keystrokes — only Gecko's cross-document
XUL <key>/GlobalKeyListener does (which is exactly why these shortcuts are <key> elements in the first place)
(b) swallowing key events risks side effects on text input, the quick-filter/search box, and compose.

So instead the following approach is suggest, which seems to work.

We disable the shortcuts at the keyset level (disabled="true" on the <key>, which GlobalKeyListener honors live), which is inert and side-effect-free.

Three things needed extra handling that a keyset-only patch would miss:

• macOS: those <key>s are also registered as native Cocoa menu key equivalents that fire before the disabled <key> is consulted, so we also strip the key reference from the referencing menu items (the menu item still works when clicked). A keyset-only disable looked correct but silently failed on macOS.
• Spacebar isn't a <key>; it's gated once in the cmd_space command so every spacebar path is covered.
• Enter isn't a <key> either; it's gated in the thread pane's keypress handler.

The lead-in is likewise implemented as a <key> (it briefly un-disables the others), not a JS listener, for the same cross-document reason. We also rejected disabling at the command level (e.g. cmd_archive), because that would disable the menu and toolbar entries too — and we want those to keep working.

Comment 103

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Attachment: Bug 615957 - Add hidden prefs to disable accidental single-character mail shortcuts. r=#thunderbird-reviewers

Comment 104

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=try-comm-central&revision=c4f595660e4e8300ea7a137ea9eee8d4e2d6bec8

Comment 105

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Attachment: WIP: Bug 615957 - Minimal patch and one hidden pref to disable accidental single-character mail shortcuts.

Comment 106

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

In addition to the earlier patch, I've attached a second patch, which is much smaller. While the first patch contained exploration of additional ideas, the "minimal patch" it strictly limited to the behavior requested in this bug.

Comment 107

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Here is an experimental add-on I made in my free time that implements the equivalent of patch #1
https://kuix.de/mozilla/thunderbird/disable-character-shortcuts/

Use at your own risk.
If this add-on helps you and you're using it, feel free to add a thumbs-up reaction to this comment, so we get some feedback whether it seen as helpful.

Otherwise, we should probably limit the discussion here in bugzilla to changes that could or should go into Thunderbird core.