new column for e-mail-address of sender

[TheRupp]

Hello,

I was very surprised that Thunderbird does not offer an option to show the e-mail-adress of the sender in a column in the table (like the columns "From" and "Correspondents"). This new column would be very useful to quickly identify spam/junk e-mails.

This feature can be added with add-ons:

•  "Show Address Only" by R.I.P.
  https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/show-address-only/
• "Full Address Column" by lkosson
  https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/full-address-column/

This feature seems very basic and simple and like it should not require an add-on.

If you do a Google search for this feature, then you find many people, who have asked for this feature for many years.

[AchimM]

Hello,

to see the Full Address Column is vital to check for spams. Such a security feature has to be inside Thunderbird.

For the developers it should be easier to code it as outside supporters.

The design is there, so please implement it with highest priority.

[Danylo]

Potentially related idea here:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/thunderbird-option-to-choose-what-to-show-in-the-from-field/idc...

[lsr1]

The fact that it was ever considered a "good idea" to remove the column for showing the sender EMAIL address in an EMAIL program speaks for itself.

[moznutzer]

Hi.

Not being able to see the real email-Adress is like a telefon not displaying the number that calls you. It is extremely sad that one has to argue to be able to see this.

I am a thunderbird user for like three decades. Not seeing the plain email-addresses involved is a pain.

[Salok]

Displaying the full sender's email address is the main reason I stuck to using Thunderbird for the longest time, that feature not returning in this new update ... confuses me.

The most important thing to avoid scams and phishing and/or recovering important mails from the spam folder is seeing the sender's info, but now we HAVE to click each mail for that. Which can be time-consuming when sorting through many mails, or simply be the most convenient.

Although I don't remember needing an add-on in the past for this, I'd settle for that over not having the feature at all.

[Charldon]

I also consider this an critical feature that should be added as a priority. I've been using it for years via an extension and am very concerned that it's no longer possible to display this essential information.

[stefanct]

I am not even using TB myself but this is such a nobrainer that I am really wondering what Mozilla is thinking. It's the same feature creep as in Firefox, which gets slower and less usable with every release because dev time is spent on easily advertisable gimmicks that very few users actually like instead of fixing bugs and regressions. It's a real bummer but unlike the browser market there are plenty of good alternatives in the MUA world thankfully.

[Alkalize2366]

The ability of showing the senders address in plain text is the very basic and most important function in an email programm

[Alkalize2366]

The ability of showing the senders address in plain text is very basic and a so important function in an email programm.

Security related. Devs take action now!

[MrArtist]

I'm amazed it is only recently being suggested that TB needs this sort of functionality, particularly as the (now old) add-ons that offered the obvious ability to instantly see the real underlying email addresses (To/From) via extra columns can no longer add this functionality. It is a very sad realisation that these add-ons will no longer ever work in TB 115 and onwards - I simply now cannot and will not upgrade to the new version of TB purely because it severely hinders the usefulness of TB and at the same time introduces very serious security issues which ironically will in theory reduce my security by not having the latest installation of TB running.

The ability to show the actual sender and recipient information by default (without having to hover or interact with anything) is an essential first line of defence against spam and also greatly assists when having various domains, aliases/IDs, catchalls and info coming in (sometimes on behalf of others and during testing) as I try to control and verify various things to do with various webadmin, personal and business uses.

And one other problem that just showing the 'name' the email To/From causes - what if you happen to know two people called "Dave Smith" or even just "Dave", or if you have two recipient accounts from the same source, one with the email 'davework@domain.com' and 'davepersonal@domain.com' but they are both just only shown as 'Dave' in TB - how the hell are we supposed to easily sort, review, verify, or check a long list of emails with that sort of limitation prevailing?!

The fact we even have to suggest needing this sort of (basic) functionality implies the powers that be don't understand the importance of such a thing as though we can just gloss over the real identity of a sender (or the intended recipient) as though it's not important. It's like someone calling at my door claiming to be an official but not showing me anything to prove it.

The number of basic users out there using email programs who don't understand the risks will just blindly be clicking emails because the name part of the email looks right instead of them considering/knowing that the underlying/hidden actual email address shown is fake - it beggars belief that all email programs don't have to show this information by law of common-sense - the fact that we can no longer do it in TB makes me furious - why didn't the devs consider this? Do we really have to keep dumbing down our lives and security because someone says so despite the evidence that shows such an ability is essential part of our daily lives especially as the risks of cybercrime etc are more and more serious than ever - it's just incredulous that this is the way we are going - less secure and less easy to use is not sensible at all !!!

Thanks to another comment here, I have just checked out the TB fork known as Betterbird which apparently still allows extra columns - I've never really tried 'forked' things before as I've tended to just go with the flow and believed the general version of things was the easiest and sensible way to go for surely they would follow common sense, but it seems not in this case - I will try and get around to giving Betterbird a go as it claims to strictly follow the main TB releases (while fixing long standing bugs, adding back functionality and more) and I should be able to switch back and forth from it and TB should it ever be needed, all using my existing user profile (all my emails, all my settings, customisations, addons, etc).

[RogerWilco]

Why isn't showing a sender's full e-mail address a native Thunderbird feature?
The data is there, some column customizations are available, so why not offer that _natively_ ?

My workaround to this Thunderbird shortcoming had been to add "Full address column", a good, helpful and security-focused addon, which mitigated this e-mail client's weakness. With v115 this is not available any more. More than just a pity.

I think that it is superfluous to list all the reasons for why this is good thing to have.
I truly hope, that this will be implemented. 

[burningwipf]

Same confusion on my side!

I've always preferred seeing name of sender + email address to get a bit more certainty of who is really sending an email, so I was pretty frustrated when Thunderbird removed that option from available columns years ago.

It was manageable though, since we had plugins that added this essential feature back in, so I'm also a long time user of the "Full Address column" plugin by now.

Please just add this option to show the e-mail-adress in this e-mail-client!

[Finchdemacher]

Better yet...... please tell us your reasoning for not including such a column.

[JuriM]

I'd agree: Stopping support of a highly recommendable anti-phishing plug-in should be treated as a security issue not just as a feature request.

[giosh94mhz]

Showing sender and recipient address explicitly is vital in many ways.

As a standard use case, imagine having a "server reports" folder all with sender "root". Ok, root, but which root? root@www.test or root@mail.test ?

As a security point of view, always showing full "Someone <email@address.test>" as the sender column, allow to identify some phishing/BEC attack. Imagine an email coming from "Your Boss <your.boss@company.test> <attacker@external.test>", with the current implementation you just see "Your Boss <your.boss@company.test>" and looks very legitimate, while the real sender is attacker@external.test

IMO, adding a simple column "Full Sender" (or "Email Only Sender"), besides the current "Sender (short/auto)" allows for better customization and security.

PS: the only fix to this was add-on "Full Address Column" that doesn't work any more in Supernova https://github.com/lkosson/full-address-column/issues/14