Bring all features in FairEmail to Thunderbird Android

[mans]

Bring all features in FairEmail to Thunderbird Android. Currently thunderbird android lacks features and bringing amazing features from FairEmail to Thunderbird Android in mozilla style would be great.

FairEmail: https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail

[kewisch]

If we were to implement everything that FairEmail does, we could just be FairEmail 🙂 I think it would be more useful to post some of the top specific things you enjoy about FairEmail as ideas here, looking forward to hearing from you!

[ThePillenwerfer]

The obvious thing is that it's far more configurable and easier to configure.

As for "If we were to implement everything that FairEmail does, we could just be FairEmail 🙂"  couldn't the word FairEmail in that sentence be replaced with "K9-Mail" yet that's where we are now.  From what I've seen of it Thunderbird for Android is Thunderbird in name only.

[kewisch]

What I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't be impersonating a different email client completely. The situation with K-9 and Thunderbird is certainly different because the two apps are developed by the same group. I was trying to make a light joke there, sorry if it landed wrong.

My personal experience has been that FairEmail was rather overwhelming to configure, so going into a bit more detail on why you feel FairEmail is easier to configure might help in the ideas. It is true that it is very customizable, though I personally wouldn't want to see that many options in Thunderbird.

What is one thing that would make Thunderbird easier to configure? That could be an idea well scoped for Mozilla Connect.

[ThePillenwerfer]

Many a true word spoken in jest.  Personally I can't see the point of taking existing software, whatever it is, and just changing the name and a few other minor tweaks.  Likewise writing something from the ground up when other things already exist would also be waste of resources.  So the big question is: Does the world need an Android version of Thunderbird unless it's better than the other existing e-mail clients.  As it is why would I, or anybody, benefit from using Thunderbird instead of K9 or vice versa?

I was perfectly happy with the Outlook app for e-mail on my Android devices — apart from it being so big — but the versions that are old enough to work on Android 5 are too old to use OAuth2 so when that became mandatory I looked for an alternative and settled on K9.

I never liked it in part due to the messing about with folder classes, which I believe the Thunderbird version has now removed. Neither could it be made to display folders in a collapsed state so the list was very long as every sub-folder was permanently on display. The picture on the right below shows what K9/Thunderbird can't do — or couldn't when I tried or I couldn't work out how if it is in fact possible.

   

I never could get it to work how I wished, though can't now recall details, and contented myself with having something that would bleep if an e-mail arrived when I didn't have a computer switched on. If the message needed any more attention than deleting or reading I'd switch a PC on to do it.

I tried Thunderbird a few months ago and couldn't tell a difference apart from the logo and nicer colour-scheme. It seemed even less configurable than I remembered K9 being and I wondered if options had been removed to reduce the number of variables whilst it was in its testing phase.  That could well by my memory deceiving me though.

That got me again looking for alternatives and that was when I discovered FairEmail.

I agree that FairEmail's host of options can be confusing so ideally it, and Thunderbird, would take a leaf out of VLC's book and by default only show basic settings but have an 'Advanced Settings' button that shows the others if needed/desired.

For an Android version of Thunderbird to have a meaningful purpose it would need to be as similar to the desktop version as possible given the restrictions of Android devices so my familiarity with that would count for something.

I've always found that there is some software that I simply get on with and some I don't. FairEmail comes into the first category and, sadly, K9/Thunderbird the latter. Objectively why is difficult to pin down.

[pegranka]

I am a long-time user of K9, but have been using Fairemail lately. I agree Fairemail is more configurable, but I find this confusing and kept getting things wrong. The features of Fairemail that I would find useful in Thunderbird/K9 are collapsible folder hierarchies, and S/MIME support. Another nice feature worth considering is the way FE displays the hosts an email has passed through when I show email headers.

Except for the folder list, I prefer the K9 UI to that of FE.

[wsmwk]

Along the lines of kewisch's posting and in the interest of efficiency, I am closing this as being much too broad a request.  But individual suggestions that can be voted, prioritized and developed are welcomed and encouraged. 

So far we have these ideas.  Please create additional desired ideas at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/idb-p/ideas/label-name/thunderbird%20android