After I posted this message, I got an email from my son suggesting that the answer might be to implement multiple forwarding actions with individual email addresses instead of using a list. There are only 8 of us, so that seems like a good approach.

When I tried to use the new Family message filter with 8 forwarding actions, my laptop locked up with so many SMTP send errors that I couldn't even log out. I had to power down and restart.

It's occurred to me that perhaps 8 message filters, each with one forwarding action might work better, but I'm already late getting to bed. I'll try that tomorrow. Does this sound like a workable idea, or is something better possible?

Trying to substitute an email client for a mailing list is like substituting a bicycle for a dump truck. :) My suggestion, since it is a mailing list you want, is to use a mailing list. You can set up one for free at mailchimp dot com, send invitations to your family members to join, and then share the email id with them so they can send their own messages. Mailchimp offers the ability to send directly from an email account. Privacy is ensured because the email id itself is the longest you've ever seen, impossible to memorize. There is also gaggle dot email, another provider of mailing list for free. There are limits, as mailchimp allows 2,000 free per month, and an email sent to 8 people counts as 8, not as 1. Just something to consider, as what you're wanting is a service that oversees all subscribers, and no email client does that. Good luck. Of course, a simple solution is for each of your 8 members to use an email client and set up a list of the other members. That would always work and seems simplest.

Two more suggestions: google groups and groups dot io. Both appear to do exactly what you want.

Thanks to everyone who replied. No, I wouldn't substitute a bicycle for a dump truck. Neither would I rent a dump truck to shop for potting soil for my house plants. The bicycle might be perfect for that shopping trip. Also, I wouldn't want our personal family conversations flowing through Google-anything. I like the idea of keeping them private.

If I'd posted here before I tried doing this with Thunderbird, I might well have looked for an external source for the solution. But since I do own the domain, and it was easy to create the email account that my family members can use to stay in touch, and since Thunderbird appears to be all that I need for our infrequent sharing of family news, I believe I have my solution now.

Thunderbird provides excellent formatting capabilities for messages, accepts images in messages, and if we ever want to share entire files, it accepts attachments. Essentially, everything any of us would want in such a system, Thunderbird provides. Best of all, it's totally in-house and private. And with a few more message filters added, I'm confident that this solution will be up and running today on a server that's already up and running 24/7.

Again, sincere thanks to those of you who responded.

The good news is that you have such a close family that enjoys frequent sharing. I enjoyed the thread.

Two more suggestions: google groups and groups dot io. Both appear to do exactly what you want.

David, your advice was good. There are so many differences between a message forwarded by a user and a message forwarded by an email filter, that my project turned out to be unworkable. I created a private list at groups dot io which seemed to be the best of the options you suggested, and I now have great expectations.

Thanks for all your help. If Thunderbird worked as I expected, my idea would have succeeded. But, alas, it didn't.

I wish you every success in this. Thunderbird does a lot, but by design, it serves only one user. I was pleased to assist.

I was trying to work around this very issue about an hour ago and discovered this method. It's workable for smaller mailing lists. When you create your filter add your forwarding rule and in the email address box type each email address separated by a semicolon. i.e. Forward To-> joe@123.com;sally@abc.com;bill@here.com

Hope this helps someone else. But, it would be nice to enter just the name of a mailing list in that address box and have Thunderbird automatically fill in the addresses as it does when you address an email to a list.

I knew about that possibility (multiple 'to' addresses), but in my case there were 8 of us, and as I remember I couldn't even get them all in to try it. In any event, they would all have shown up as "Forwarded by ...", and I wasn't fond of that idea. That would have been true even if Thunderbird were able to forward to a list of addresses, I'm afraid.

Now that I've been using David's suggestion for a few days, I can't praise it enough. Groups dot io surprises me with its completeness and functionality every day. I now regret all the time I spent trying to turn Thunderbird into a mailing list.

With that said, I still think it's already come so close, that it wouldn't need a lot more development work to add that functionality, but it's not there yet, and it might never become a priority. Perhaps in the next major version?

I doubt it. The groups io system sits on top of everyone; that's why it works. Thunderbird is always subordinate to a single account and can never oversee distribution by itself. It is a completely different animal, much as a truck is to an airplane. But thanks for the kind words.