Thunderbird -- Open Mail in Plaintext with one mouse click

[gNeandr]

TB allows viewing mails in plain text notation. This is useful to open suspicious mails without running the risk of directly triggering malicious content.
This display can currently only be set so that all mails are displayed in the same way as plain text or full HTML. This requires an unnecessary menu sequence before and after viewing a "suspicious" mail.
A menu item in the context menu would be much easier ... faster ... more convenient.

[Jon]

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

[MattAuSupport]

I think perhaps what would be most convenient is to stop viewing "suspicious" emails in plain text.  They really represent almost zero risk.  I would say none,  but nothing is risk-free.

People using products like Outlook are advised to use plain text primarily to prevent scripts from running when they open their emails,  but Thunderbird does not allow that ever.  So no foul from viewing that HTML email as HTML.  The lack of scripts is also why Google maps emails don't work in Thunderbird like they do in other mail programs.

Thunderbird also blocks remote images.  This prevents the loading of tracking images in your email.  Some folk turn remote images on for all sources.  They may have issues with mail tracking them (in my case ebay complained I did not read their emails, because their tracking images were never loaded.)

The only real part of an email that can cause real infection is an attachment, and that does not exist as such until you select to either save it or open it and at that time your antivirus should hop in a kill the file before it is saved.