Thunderbird Attachments and IMAP

[phloy...@hotmail.com]

The problem with Thunderbird, IMAP and attachments auto-downloading
(and then wastefully re-downloading) seems to be well documented.
However, there seems to be little interest in getting it fixed.

See Bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=235942

I really like Thunderbird, but can anyone suggest an alternative mail
client that is smart about IMAP attachment handling?

-Floyd

[Peter Potamus the Purple Hippo]

you're right, it is a problem, especially when you don't
know how to fix things. I found it out the hard way. I
have about 10 IMAP accounts, each gets about 50 to 100
messages a day, and 98% of them contain attachments. First
I 'downloaded' the messages, 100 megs. Then I click on them
to view the attachments, and they were 'downloaded' again --
another 100 megs. Forget about moving the messages to
another folder so I'll have them on my disk -- another 100
megs download. I did about 3 accounts, and in 2 days I was
over 1 gigs of download. Crappers, this will eat up all my
allotted isp downloads.

Then I found out what to do. Click on Tools, Account
Settings, select the account, and under Offline & Disk
Space, at the top right, you will see "make the messages in
my inbox available when I am working offline." Check that
box. Now, the messages are downloaded once. Go offline and
view your attachments. If you don't go offline, then every
time you access a message, then you're still connected to
the imap account, and you're accessing it. Not as much
download though, but just a little.

--
Peter Potamus & His Magic Flying Balloon:
http://www.toonopedia.com/potamus.htm
http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/46347-Peter_Potamus_Show.html
http://www.toonarific.com/show.php?s_search=Potamus&Button_Update=Search&show_id=2778

Please do not email me for help. Reply to the newsgroup
only. Thanks

[phloy...@hotmail.com]

Thanks, Peter. Good tip.

However, I would characterize this a workaround and not a fix. Going
offline is not an option given the email culture at my company, so I'm
still looking for a new email client.

Basically, I *never* want attachments downloaded, online or offline,
unless I expressly download them via a clicking or dragging gesture
(or some equivalent operation.)

-Floyd

[Neil]

phloy...@hotmail.com wrote:

>Basically, I *never* want attachments downloaded
>

If you can live with another workaround, I understand that turning off
the "View Attachments Inline" option will keep Thunderbird from
downloading attachments when you view a message.

--
Warning: May contain traces of nuts.

[phloy...@hotmail.com]

Neil,

This seems to help. This option does not seem to be "sticky", and it
turns itself back on from time to time.

I am using Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 on XP.

On my system, the option you mentioned is called "Display Attachments
Inline", available on the "View" menu.

Wonder why this isn't mentioned in Bugzilla?

Thanks again,
Floyd

[Neil]

phloy...@hotmail.com wrote:

>On my system, the option you mentioned is called "Display Attachments Inline", available on the "View" menu.
>
>

Ah, I knew "View" came into it somewhere :-)

[phloy...@hotmail.com]

After trying this for a while, I find that it really doesn't help that
much.

I sent myself an email with a large attachment. The very first time I
acess the email, I see that the attachment is not downloaded. If I
leave the email and return to it, the attachment starts to download
upon this subsequent access and Thunderbird is very unresponvie until
the download completes.

Worse, if I right click and choose "Delete Message", the attachment
*again* re-downloads, even though my intent is to delete the darn
thing! Ouch!

Still looking for a solution or new email client....

Thanks,
Floyd

[Marshall Price]

I used to use Pine on a Unix system. It was developed by a university
computer science department. It was rather complicated (to my way of
thinking), but its replacement, Alpine, has probably been released by
now, and promises to be much more user- and Windows- friendly.

Pine was very standards-compliant, supported heavy (broadband) users,
and worked especially well with IMAP. Alpine is expected to share these
advantages.

--
Marshall Price of Miami
Known to Yahoo as d021317c

[Marshall Price]

Oops! Alpine still isn't ready. Sorry.