AutoArchive - the one feature I miss from Outlook (classic)

[triatic]

I love Thunderbird and it has replaced Outlook (classic) for me, but there's one feature I miss, AutoArchive.

In Outlook (classic), emails older than x days can be automatically moved out of the server folders and into local folders, freeing up server storage space and negating the need to pay for additional cloud storage.

Thunderbird has the ability to select a group of messages in any folder and right-click > Archive (move) them to the matching Local Folder: perfect! But manually selecting multiple messages older than x days in multiple IMAP folders and selecting "Archive" is a chore too far.

Thunderbird should natively have the ability to (optionally) iterate across all IMAP folders and "Archive" any message older than x days, according to the Message Archives setting in Account Settings > Copies & Folders. The Disk Space setting in Account Settings could be an ideal place to add an "Archive messages more than x days old" option, since it already has a "Delete messages more than x days old" option.

Note: I know about the AutoarchiveReloaded add-on, but for something as important as shifting emails around with the possible breakage that could occur, and the possibility of the add-on being discontinued, native support would be very much welcome.

Another note: this has of course been raised on bugzilla,[1] but it's a 15 year old bug and seemingly unlikely to come to fruition.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=536169

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Cherilm93]

Actually in the filter function you can send emails anywhere and even delete messages if you wanted, just make your own archive. I like to send them to a folder and select which ones to keep from there and delete what I don't want in that folder once it is off the server. Thunderbird does ask you how long to keep emails on the server before deleting them. Does that help any? It's all in the account settings.

[triatic]

Thanks for the reply @Cherilm93 . Under that scenario, the filter would move the email from the IMAP folder to a local folder immediately, removing the ability for other clients to view the email. I would like the email to stay in the IMAP folders for 90 days, before getting automatically moved to a local archive folder, to reduce server storage usage.

[quintonv]

Wow, how can this only have 2 Kudos, it's such a vital feature that it should be vanilla years ago already.
The addon looks risky as it mentions one could lose data...

[pacionet]

In 2024 it is absolutely necessary