Thunderbird 2 First Impressions

First impressions on Thunderbird 2. Is it a must upgrade?

Thunderbird 2 is much more responsive than Thunderbird 1.5. I like the new icons, they are pleasing to the eyes.

Thunderbird 2 still has the limit of forwarding a maximum of 8 messages inline. The worse part is that it doesn’t warn you about it.

Thunderbird 1.5 has two serious bugs in handling email with multiple attachments, each attachment being an email with or without an attachment of its own. This isn’t as far fetched as it sounds. Just yesterday I wanted to forward all the resumes I received by email to my secretary. Thunderbird allows you to forward multiple emails as attachment, the attachment in this case being emails with attachments of their own (the resume). Thunderbird 1.5 was unable to save any of the attachments with emails send at attachment. This is a serious defect which I never encountered in Microsoft Outlook. Thunderbird 2 fixed this issue.

There is another biggie in attachment handling. When you open an attached email, all attachments from all the attached emails and the attached email themselves are shown! This makes it almost impossible to identify which attached file belongs to which email. Thunderbird 2 still has this defect.

For some strange reason Thunderbird changed the default background of content pane to pink.

Thunderbird 2 introduced tagging to emails. It allows you to “tag” messages with descriptors such as “To Do” or “Done” or even create your own tags that are specific to your needs. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.

Thunderbird 2 allows you to view message history very much like the browser. This is an useful addition for power users.

Thunderbird improved searching with search-as-you-type quick search. It also saves your searches and even organize them in folders. This is like search folders in Evolution.

The new alert service alerts you about new messages in folders and more. Now you can access GMail & .Mac accounts by simply providing their user name and password, thunderbird handles the rest.

Overall Thunderbird 2 is a recommended upgrade over Thunderbird 1.5. It is emerging as a really good competitor for Microsoft Outlook in Windows and the leader the Linux desktops.