This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Buscar en Ayuda

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How can I use messages as notes?

  • 5 respuestas
  • 1 tiene este problema
  • 2 visitas
  • Última respuesta de ACProctor

more options

I have finally been forced to migrate from Outlook Express (OE) to Thunderbird. This was a fairly painless operation (thanks folks), but I have one problem that I can't believe is unusual.

I used OE as an organiser, memory-aid, and many similar functions. I have many GB of data, a significant amount of which consisted of pseudo-messages that contained notes, lists, reminders, etc., and which would never be sent anywhere. For instance, if I was pursuing a support call, or a utility complaint, then I might keep a log of all phone conversions, email exchanges, letters, etc., in such a pseudo-message.

I found that there's a couple of 'Edit' option on these messages, but they assumes that I want to save any modified version to my Drafts folder -- which I do not! I simply want to edit these messages in situ, as though they were files, stored in their respective folders (NOT in Drafts).

Is there a way I can do this, or has no one thought of it as a feature. OE handles this very well, and I'm now totally committed to this method of organising my personal life.

I have finally been forced to migrate from Outlook Express (OE) to Thunderbird. This was a fairly painless operation (thanks folks), but I have one problem that I can't believe is unusual. I used OE as an organiser, memory-aid, and many similar functions. I have many GB of data, a significant amount of which consisted of pseudo-messages that contained notes, lists, reminders, etc., and which would never be sent anywhere. For instance, if I was pursuing a support call, or a utility complaint, then I might keep a log of all phone conversions, email exchanges, letters, etc., in such a pseudo-message. I found that there's a couple of 'Edit' option on these messages, but they assumes that I want to save any modified version to my Drafts folder -- which I do not! I simply want to edit these messages in situ, as though they were files, stored in their respective folders (NOT in Drafts). Is there a way I can do this, or has no one thought of it as a feature. OE handles this very well, and I'm now totally committed to this method of organising my personal life.

Todas las respuestas (5)

more options
more options

Thanks. I'll give the header-tools-lite a test. I'm not interested in anything too specialised as they will almost certainly have eliminated the flexibility I need.

Just checking: will this only allow me to edit the text of unsent messages? I don't want to mess with anything I've already received or sent

Modificadas por ACProctor el

more options

OK, this is a non-starter for me. Messages that have already been sent or received should be immutable. I once used such messages as evidence in the past and so such an add-on would have rendered them useless at that time.

I have to say that the idea that all your unsent messages should be in a single Drafts folder is a bit "Mickey Mouse" (probably a hangover from the days when people didn't create many folders of their own, and didn't retain many of their historical messages).

Is there no similar add-on that simply enables editing of unsent messages?

[Unrelated, but to put the record straight: OE also had silly instances of arbitrary limitations -- they made it impossible to print an unsent message (say for someone else to review) without copying-and-pasting elsewhere.]

more options

I agree, old email should be immutable. Have you looked at Onenote? Personally I use a calendar for this kind of activity. It nags me when I need to be reminded. ;-)

You could use email and just keep forwarding it to yourself as you edit and amend it…

more options

It's not really a calendar that I need; I simple want to keep notes and other long-term unsent messages in their original folders.

Yes, I could use OneNote, or Word, or even Notepad, ... but the essential thing is that I want these filed along with related messages in my many folders. It's basically just another "file system", but Thunderbird oddly doesn't fully acknowledge that. I can't speak for Microsoft's litany of more-recent email systems, but I do know that OE isn't the only system out there that handles the folders in a more file-system fashion.