T-bird needs an intuitive boolean Eudora-style email search interface able to search ALL & Attachment names

[Forced2create]

Thunderbird needs one complete, intuitive email search interface that can search ALL and Attachment names, like Eudora had.

Eudora had a far better search interface more than 20 years ago. You could select what you wanted to search — From, To, Subject, Body, attachment filename, etc. — combine criteria with AND/OR, use wildcards, or simply select ALL and search everything associated with a message.

Thunderbird instead has several different and incomplete search systems: Global Search, Quick Filter, and Search Messages. None provides all of these basic capabilities in one straightforward graphical interface.

For example, Search Messages provides a useful graphical Boolean interface, but it cannot search attachment filenames and does not provide a true "ALL" field that includes headers, subject, body and attachment filenames.

Quick Filter is convenient for everyday searching, but again cannot search attachment filenames.

To search attachment filenames, I had to install a third-party extension, Expression Search NG. It can do it, but requires special query syntax such as "filename:xyz" and takes over Thunderbird's normal Quick Filter interface. This is far more complicated than this basic task should be.

Please provide one native Advanced Search interface with:

• From
• To
• CC/BCC
• Subject
• Message body
• Headers
• Attachment filename
• ALL / Anywhere — searches all of the above

It should support Contains, Doesn't Contain, Is, Begins With, AND/OR, exact phrases, and wildcards.

These choices should be available through ordinary fields, dropdowns and buttons. Users should not have to memorize special search syntax or install extensions.

Also, Search Messages should have a built-in toolbar button that can be added through Customize Toolbar.

This isn't a request for an exotic power-user feature. These are ordinary ways of finding email, and email programs provided them through simple graphical interfaces decades ago.

Thunderbird has plenty of search functionality underneath, but it is fragmented among different interfaces. Bringing it together into one complete, intuitive search tool would be a major usability improvement.

Thank you

[Jon]

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