Background Mail Fetching and Notification

[The_Mighty_Pawn]

Hi everyone,

I've been using Thunderbird as my main mail application for the past few month or so and I've found that it will not grab mail when the app is closed because it does not seem to have a background service responsible for this. Would it be possible to make a background process that stays open even when you exit out of the app and gets new mail and notifies you?

Thunderbird 

[Jon]

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

[MattAuSupport]

In windows, you turn on the setting "when Thunderbird is closed, minimize to tray."

There is nothing for non Windows systems.

[IanSav]

I have a similar request.

I never normally close Thunderbird I just minimise it when it is not in active use.  When I restore the window I usually note that the new message counters have updated while the app was idle but the actual messages are not fetched.  I need to visit each folder and then wait for the messages to be downloaded and the folder lists to be updated.

My wrinkle on the original wish is that I am happy to leave Thunderbird running but I would like it to fetch messages and update all the folders even when it is idle and minimised.  I don't want to manually force updates when I restore the windows and want to process my email.

[Jodi42]

I have request to add feature that allows thunderbird to run in background or any other service that kind of check for new mails even after the application is closed. I think outlook has this feature where it checks for new mails on system startup and does the same even after the app is closed. I guess adding a feature of minimizing the app to system tray would do the job but it will be using way too much resources.

Link to the outlook app I am referring to #https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/outlook/outlook-for-windows

[Jon]

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

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/add-option-to-start-thunderbird-on-minimized-system-startup/idi...

KeepRunning ?

[Anonymous]

Hello

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/add-option-to-start-thunderbird-on-minimized-system-startup/idi...

KeepRunning ?

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+1, Add a right-click menu saying "Minimize as a tray icon when close", when choose this, anytime you close the app, it will disappear and minimize to the tray.

[Jodi42]

@Anonymous Are you talking about the option "When Thunderbird is minimised, move it to the tray" in settings?

[Anonymous]

@TungWei Are you talking about the option "When Thunderbird is minimised, move it to the tray" in settings?

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Yes.

I'm now using Outlook, and when you minimize it, it will show an icon in the right-bottom corner saying "Hide when minimize", when you right click it, and a menu pops up with the choice.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Clarifiction

Since the release of Thunderbird 78
Minimize to tray support added for Windows https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/new-thunderbird-78#w_minimize-to-tray-support-added-for-windows

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When Thunderbird is minimized, move it to the tray

[Jodi42]

@Anonymous @Agentvirtuel When you close outlook it still runs in background and checks for new mails. I wish that something like could be done with thunderbird as well. I used the new outlook version.

[Anonymous]

@TungWei @Agentvirtuel When you close outlook it still runs in background and checks for new mails. I wish that something like could be done with thunderbird as well. I used the new outlook version.

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I'm using Outlook 2024, and when I close it, it will be minimized and go to the right corner as a system tray. In fact I'm afraid it isn't really "closed" but keep running in background

[wsmwk]

Merging this to https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/background-mail-fetching-and-notification/idi-p/36256 which is the same idea.

[Skywind]

Just what I have been thinking about.

TB really needs this feature. Now we just have to manually launch it and keep it running in the backstage to receive new notifications, which is not as handy as the UWP Mail client, and also consumes more system resources.

The UWP Mail client does pretty well in this respect. There is no need for manual starting, and it fetches new e-mails for me automatically even if I didn't launch it or closed it. Adding this feature to TB would be fantastic!