Thin or pure online mode for Thundebird (via IMAP) with full mail indexing.

[_ChrisG_]

Thunderbird is one of the greatest free email client for private or corporate use, but I miss one small feat - ability to work pure online, thin mode with full mail indexing, using IMAP.

What do I mean by that?

- TB is configured to connect mailbox by using IMAP4

- TB does not permanently store a copy of the message locally (something like when you switch the "mail.server.default.offline_download" option to false)

However, when you connect to your mailbox for the first time:

- It will Index the directory tree that is subscribed (default: all)

- It will download headers (title, from, to, date, etc.) of each message (this currently works when "mail.server.default.offline_download" is set to false) to build *.msf files

- It checks the search index (GLODA) to see if it has indexed the content of messages that it has indexed previously - if it doesn't, it downloads these messages, indexes the content, but does not store these messages locally - in other words - it downloads them "temporarily" in order to build the GLODA index (global-messages-db.sqlite file)

- Each new message that comes into the "Inbox" is downloaded, indexed (from, to, etc. and its content), but is not stored locally permanently.

- Each time you open a message, TB has to download it again.

What are the advantages of this "thin" mode over standard IMAP work?

- TB has the same knowledge about messages as in the case of normal operation, but does not consume the local disk space that these messages would occupy.

- This is a huge advantage (not storing a local copy of mail permanently) for thin/air laptops with limited disk space (for huge mailboxes) with fast Internet access

- TB does not have to deal locally with huge amounts of *.eml files for very large mailboxes, especially when filters are in effect or the user changes/moves messages locally - this work is done by the IMAP server, TB is only an image of these changes.

- The free space (not occupied by the local copy of the entire mailbox) on these types of laptops can be used for other purposes.

PS: Partial functionality can be achieved by setting "mail.server.default.offline_download" to false - this means that messages are not stored locally, while GLODA indexes only from, to, subject/title - without the message content (and this is what I want to add indexing of message content in this mode)

Thunderbird 

[Jon]

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

[_ChrisG_]

Thank you.

PS: I know that my idea probably seems weird, etc., but maybe there is someone else who would find such a feature useful.