Comments on: Easy synchronization of email between two machines w/ Thunderbird

By: WouterB

WouterB — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:41:48 +0000

Had the same problem because I have the same User-Agent on both machines. But I found a workaround! My solution is to tag the mail by a (new) personal tag. This tag is different on both machines. It’s possible to let TB automatically tag a new mail. This is done by editing the Config Editor as follows :
1. Edit Preference Name ‘mailnews.customHeaders’ giving it the value ‘X-Mozilla-Keys: Reply-To’ ; this way you have both Reply-To and tags (represented by X-Mozilla-Keys) as criteria for your message filter. Btw you only need ‘X-Mozilla-Keys’ in TB2 for in TB3 a standard criterium Tags exists in the latter. The Reply-To criterium you need to identify the email is sent by you and not someone else.
2. Create 2 new Preference Names for each id (=account)
‘mail.identity.id1.headers’ with string value ‘mozilla-keys’ (choose the appropriate id#)
‘mail.identity.id1.header.mozilla-keys’ with string value ‘X-Mozilla-Keys:yourtagname’
For the 2 machines ‘yourtagname’ must of course be different. Don’t forget that this user tag must also actually exist in TB: you have to create it. I just tested it and it works flawlessly!

By: Joeyhealy

Joeyhealy — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:41:31 +0000

He j tan so much. I am just having trouble with the sent mails setup for outlook. I am not sure which rules to use.

By: Zélito

Zélito — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:08:14 +0000

Thanks a lot for the method Jeremy! It’s working even with computers with the same user-agent, using a custom header for distinguish between them.

By: Zélito

Zélito — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:57:48 +0000

@jackie: You could try using info from : http://kb.mozillazine.org/Custom_headers#Add_custom_headers

So that you can set a custom header to be sent along with every e-mail, and so, you set a different value for every computer you use. Then you can set the filter to check this custom header and look for the values you set.

To know how to add new preferences: http://email.about.com/od/mozillathunderbirdtips/qt/Add_an_Arbitrary_Custom_Header_to_Mozilla_Thunderbird.htm

I have tested this and it is working under Thunderbird 3.04 / Linux.

By: jackie

jackie — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:28:58 +0000

So far this works well but I still can’t figure a way to make the unique header to separate which email is from which computer. Anyone has a workaround?

By: Nishant

Nishant — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 05:49:42 +0000

I will certainly try to use your application. BUt the site is not opening. So please check on it and send me a working url

By: Nishant

Nishant — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 05:45:43 +0000

Your article for syncing Thunderbird between 2 machines is really great. I have followed the steps as designed by you, but I am facing a strange problem in using Thunderbird. All the mails downloaded on 1 machine is not downloaded to the second machine. And due to this I am forced to use just 1 email client all the time. Please suggest me a way to overcome this problem.

By: jackie

jackie — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:06:38 +0000

this is exactly what I am looking for!! thanks for posting a solution that is simple and free!!

By: Gary Wilson

Gary Wilson — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:28:56 +0000

http://thundercat.dpant.com – doesn’t load as a website

By: Stuart Elder

Stuart Elder — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:32:38 +0000

Brilliant Jeremy! Just what I’ve been looking for, and oh so simple.

Many thanks.

Stuart

By: Dimitris Pantazopoulos

Dimitris Pantazopoulos — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:25:34 +0000

FYI, I have created Thundercat, a .NET 2.0/Mono 1.9 application to synchronize mbox mail files. Thundercat is heavily tested with Thunderbird mail files and is freely available from: http://thundercat.dpant.com. The website contains all technical information, too.

Please feel free to try Thundercat out and let me know of any shortcomings / bugs.

Thank you very much.

By: Keeping Email Synced On Multiple Computers » PC Mechanic

Keeping Email Synced On Multiple Computers » PC Mechanic — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:22:13 +0000

[...] you are using Thunderbird, there isn’t really anything notable available. However, Jeremy Johnstone posted on his site a unique way of getting the job done without using any special software. His method, in short, [...]

By: Pat

Pat — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 09:07:51 +0000

This looks like a very neat solution and will meet my needs perfectly. Not revolutionary or groundbreaking? It’s a pretty creative use of available resources – and can’t be emulated in Outlook – at least I can’t find a way to automatically bcc an address! So I’ll give Thunderbird a go… Thanks!

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:04:57 +0000

Two reasons behind that actually.

1.) This is my Yahoo work email so Gmail wouldn’t work. Yahoo mail would sorta work, but it doesn’t support subfolders (neither does Gmail) and I have a very rigidly designed mail organization system.

2.) I wanted to be able to read my mail even when I didn’t have an internet connection (like when I am on a plane).

By: soccaj

soccaj — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 13:11:45 +0000

Why not using webmail like gmail or yahoo mail. You don’t have to synchronise at all