Thunderbird 2 is go

Had it for a while. I love it.

I tried thunderbird 1 a while back and couldn't figure out what it was for. I never used Outlook or anything else, what are they for? I used to use hotmail and now just use gmail for all my email. Is thunderbird just for storing large amounts of email and organizing them? Cause I have never used more than 2MB of storage for all my email on hotmail and gmail combined. I don't get more than a couple spams a year and clean out old emails every month, I only keep a few important ones. I'm serious, can anyone enlighten me as to what thunderbird does?

Originally Posted by Lazarus Dark
I tried thunderbird 1 a while back and couldn't figure out what it was for. I never used Outlook or anything else, what are they for? I used to use hotmail and now just use gmail for all my email. Is thunderbird just for storing large amounts of email and organizing them? Cause I have never used more than 2MB of storage for all my email on hotmail and gmail combined. I don't get more than a couple spams a year and clean out old emails every month, I only keep a few important ones. I'm serious, can anyone enlighten me as to what thunderbird does?

I was in the same boat for a very long time, couldn't see the point of them. Then I started working regularly and couldn't cope with scraps of paper and a wall calender and multiple email clients anymore. I use Outlook at work to combine all three and its beautiful.

Originally Posted by Lazarus Dark
I tried thunderbird 1 a while back and couldn't figure out what it was for. I never used Outlook or anything else, what are they for? I used to use hotmail and now just use gmail for all my email. Is thunderbird just for storing large amounts of email and organizing them? Cause I have never used more than 2MB of storage for all my email on hotmail and gmail combined. I don't get more than a couple spams a year and clean out old emails every month, I only keep a few important ones. I'm serious, can anyone enlighten me as to what thunderbird does?

Gmail is pretty awesome as web based email goes, but a proper email client gives you offline storage (so you can access your old emails without being online) limited only by the size of your HDD (though Outlook / Exchange gets a bit crusty when mailboxes get too big - I think this is one area where Office 2007 has improved). You also get proper folder organisation, a better engine for composing emails, the ability to compose offline and the ability to add extensions to do all sorts of things.

Okay, the offline features are less of an issue now with the wide availability of broadband, but it used to be a real ball ache with HoTMaiL to compose a long email online when you were being charged by the minute and tying up your phone line for a flaky dial up connection that could drop at any minute. Also, because broadband speeds are so good now, having all your email stored locally is less of an advantage than it used to be.

Outlook also gives you calendar and task list integration - Thunderbird may do the same, haven't really used it.

Having said that, Outlook's search facility is like a blind leper compared to GMail's Google powered ninja search, and it's great to be able to access your email from anywhere.

It's all about the right tool for the job. Business users may need the extra functionality of a dedicated mail client, while for home users the simplified web interface, universal access and data security (Google backs everything up constantly and, AFAIK, GMail has never lost an email ever, while your average home user probably is slightly less diligent), plus the fact that GMail is free (I know Thunderbird is as well, but you also need to set up a mail account separately, which may or may not be free) might swing it.

If you're happy with GMail / HoTMaiL and don't want for the additional features, my advice is to stick with what you know.

^ You can of course read gmail via pop3.

I have to say that I was disappointed with... the article. It reads like a press release, has a stat to bulk it up. Bit-tech can do better. PS - who's Joe Martin?

I am. New Staff Writer.

P.S. Sorry you didn't like the article, it was based off a press release from Mozilla, so maybe some of that flavour came across.

I tried Thunderbird 1 for a while. But I just didnt have the time to go through it properly and set it up how I wanted. I have been using outlook 2003 for a while. I will probably try out Thunderbird 2 as I am sure alot of requested features have been added, so it should be good.

I use outlook mostly because of the integrated notes/calendar and the fact that the tags are application-wide rather than category-wide. It makes it easy to keep track of info for certain appointments (the date in the calendar but the info in an email with an associated task for example.)

outlook also has a great system for collaborative tasking. I love how I can set up a task list for a group and when something gets done it's checked off and everyone else in the project gets updated instantly. (great for collaboration projects at uni)

once thunderbird is capable of these it'll have a convert, but necessity and the level of integration with the other office apps will keep me with outlook for the moment.

Hmm ... I really have to check out this one. (Wonder if they have done something about the IMAP search features)
Or maybe I should wait for 2.1 :)

As for Outlook: It's not an email client. It's an Everything. I have to use it at work and it's OK. Would never use it for my private PC though, too much overhead. :)

As for webmail:
My email provider has a pretty decent webinterface and I use IMAP to access my mails through thunderbird. So I have quick and clean access from home and can still access my emails everywhere.

cheers,
btb

Portable Thunderbird is the KING of mail clients if you're on the go: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable

If you want to reformat your system or move your email from your desktop to notebook you just drag and drop the whole thing onto a USB key (or, just run it from a USB key!) and take it with you. It's freaking genius.

Still waiting for them to convert 2.0 though :/

You still couldn't pay me to convert back to desktop based email...

And here I have a 50 doing nothing too. :(

I've been using Thunderbird at work & Yahoo for personal mail. Thanks for the heads up on version 2.

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Portable Thunderbird ...
...
Still waiting for them to convert 2.0 though :/

;) (There is a beta of 2.0)

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
And here I have a 50 doing nothing too. :(

OH, OH, PICK ME!! :)

Originally Posted by CardJoe
I am. New Staff Writer.

P.S. Sorry you didn't like the article, it was based off a press release from Mozilla, so maybe some of that flavour came across.

Well i quite liked the read, i thought it was to the point and in my eyes this is what a news snippet should be :) Plus what else is there to say about an updated mail client :P

been using the beta of thunderbird 2 for a while, the official version looks much better :)

I've been using Thunderbird very happily for about a year now for personal mail on both home and work PCs, plus a portable copy on my USB key for my most personal account.

Yeah, it's no Outlook - which I use for work purposes - but it does exactly what I want it to very well. As a pure mail client I love it.

Thanks for the heads up, I hadn't heard about the release. Downloading v2 now.

I used Thunderbird 1.whatever for a long time just to check my email and such, but when Vista came out I switched to Mail 7 (because of the integration with Vista).
If Thunderbird integrates with Vista Search then I'll start using it right now (I miss some extensions).

EDIT: Quick and easy Gmail setup? I'm there!

I've been using thunderbird for some time now , it's simple allows me to read mail, I don't use or need the other features of other mail programmes.

Can you like, set it up so it receives messages from say, a yahoo account.

Basically let me use my yahoo account.

depends if yahoo is pop capable like gmail is.

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
depends if yahoo is pop capable like gmail is.

The answer would be no.

I got it working today, looks and feels great and its easy to use too!

Looked at thunderbird once, but could never get it running with a http hotmail account, so never used it really

Thunderbird (and Outlook Express) combines email facilities with full newsgroup access, something Outlook, for all its bloat, is missing and I don't think gmail, etc, has. And for the really hard questions you can't beat newsgroups, there's one for everything.

Is it possible to use MS Exchange with Thunderbird? I shouldn't think it would be, but that would be the clincher for me, as our school uses Exchange...

Originally Posted by Cupboard
Is it possible to use MS Exchange with Thunderbird? I shouldn't think it would be, but that would be the clincher for me, as our school uses Exchange...

I'm pretty sure you can -- most of our email is run off Exchange, but I then have my mail filtered through Spamcop before I download it (I hate having to download needless email, especially via GPRS where you're paying per KB). I run Thunderbird quite religiously... the only thing I use Outlook for is backing up my contacts on my Windows Mobile smart phone.

Thunderbird 2 looks alright although it feels like the default text size is bigger than it was in Thunderbird 1.5, as I've got a scroll bar down the side on my ThinkPad X60s now.