830558 - User should be able to specify location for filters outside Profile folder

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Filters, enhancement)

Description

[WBT]

I would very much like a config setting that lets me change the location where mail filters are stored, to somewhere outside the Profile. 

A great use case for this would be changing the location to be stored in a Dropbox, Box, or other shared/cloud storage system.  Then when I update filters on one machine, next time I open Thunderbird on the other machine, it'll be running the latest filters.  Currently I have to hack together an Export Filters on one machine to the cloud storage and an Import Filters on the other, a manual process far more tedious than it needs to be. 

I've thought about coding up an add-on that stores the filters in some special e-mail on the IMAP server, but that approach is brittle and may break when filter code changes (or for POP users).  

Letting the user say where the mail filter rules should be stored, and storing that file location in the profile...seems like a simple, elegant solution.  

See also Bug 791522 related to archive location.

Comment 1

[:aceman]

Maybe this would be solved via adding the Firefox sync support to Thundebird. Maybe there are already filed bugs about that. It was already proposed at a meeting but it needs thought what data needs to be synced between machines: account settings, filters, email data?

Comment 2

[WBT]

That might help, but this bug report is distinctly different.  With Firefox/Mozilla Sync, you have to trust the Mozilla companies and servers with detailed confidential information.
With the option to tell Thunderbird where to look for mail filters, you can control the servers where that information is stored, and not have to worry about e. g. a corporate information security office blocking effective use of TB.

Comment 3

[:aceman]

From what I know mozilla sync is specifically designed so that the data is stored encrypted on the mozilla servers so that mozilla does not have access to your data and you do not need to trust them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_Sync .

Comment 4

[WBT]

Storing sensitive confidential data on (possibly unreliable and/or hackable) third-party servers, and frequently transmitting it to and from, regardless of encryption, is not something everybody is allowed to do, and even in many cases where it is allowed, it is a *really* tough sell ("how do we know they can't decrypt it or haven't built in a back door access?"). 

Others may carry a jumpdrive or other physical media (always mapped to the same drive letter) with working files such as filters, and regularly use them in an environment where a second computer can't access Mozilla's servers.  

While extending Firefox sync to Thunderbird would serve many people well, there would still be a significant population unable or unwilling to use that service, who still want the ability to tell Thunderbird where to find its filters.  

It doesn't *seem* like this should be a super-hard change in the code - create the property; set its default to the current location of the filters, and then change references in the code to use the variable instead of the hard-coded current location.   

This solution is also far more scalable than using Mozilla's servers to store the data; each person who uses the feature must provide the space and bandwidth to meet their own needs without relying on a central authority.

Comment 5

[:aceman]

OK, but how did you decide that only filters need this special functionality?

Comment 6

[WBT]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #5)
> OK, but how did you decide that only filters need this special functionality?

(a) at least in my use case, filters evolve and change a lot more frequently than other kinds of preferences, settings, etc., and I spend a great deal more time updating filters and trying to get those properly synched across machines, than anything else.  (IMAP addresses the challenge of getting mail, drafts, and folder structure synced across machines easily.)  I figured out how to set the location of session information (using the Session Manager add-on) in Firefox and believe that setting a pointer to the filters location would cause a similar large improvement in the way I am able to use TB.

(b) Adding this preference for the filters is a small, relatively easy fix.   If it were something more complicated, I would not be able to realistically hope that it would be done anytime in the near future.  

(c) I recognize that there may be other reasons for creating pointers to other locations, that can be considered and done independently, on their own merits.  I provided an example link to Bug 791522 (re: setting Archive location) and would favor indicating cross-links to other related discussions, but believe that effort spent searching for or creating other discussions would be better spent on actually writing a patch to add this functionality.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

There's a whole lot that could go wrong with this, and regardless I don't think we'd do this on it's own - only as part of a larger idea.

Comment 8

[WBT]

There's a whole lot that could go wrong with this, and regardless I don't think we'd do this on it's own - only as part of a larger idea.

Specifying what those are would help make a more credible meritocratic argument, and after several years have passed it's clear this isn't going to happen either on its own or as part of a larger idea. These are the kinds of things that made me leave TB.