Search By Name or Surname of the user. NOT by the username
Good day! I tried to use Thunderbird for many email accounts. We must monitor inbox folders among many accounts. However, there is a small problem with the Thunderbird. There is an amazing search among all messages and etc. The problem is this search does not work to filter and find only a certain User. I am talking about searching by the real name or surname of the user. For example, we have John Smith person. His email is fluffyunicorn123@gmail.com. It would be awesome to have a feature that allows to find Folder with name John Smith without scrolling. This is because there can be 100 accounts connected, and email username is not necessarily the same as the real name of the account holder (memorizing fluffyunicorn is not very user friendly task, considering the fact that there are 100 accounts). If you add this feature, Thunderbird will become much better that private services such as Mailbird, Em client. This is because i tried them , but they don't have feature to search a certain account by real name of the user. Would you please consider adding this feature to the Thunderbird? Thanks!
All Replies (3)
Search only searches on what is in the email. Thunderbird tries to make the name display nice by using your description from the address book, so start by turning of the friendly names in preferences. So what you see in the mail list is what is actually there.
Preferences > search display name and turn the option off to show only display name for people in your address book.
Now do these display names you want to search on still display in the message lists?
Hello Mr.Matt! Thanks a lot for your reply!! I think i did not explain my question properly. A did what you said, but the account names are displayed as email usernames. Fluffyunicorn@gmail.com is shown instead of John Smith. On the left hand side there is a list with folders. Each folder has name as an email. For example, @gmail.com. However, the real name of the account holder is John Smith. This name is not visible. So if I give a task to my secretary to read Inbox of Johm Smith, the secretary must scroll through 100 of emails and click individually on each until she finds John Smith. I was thinking if there was a separate search window called "Search Ny Real Name and/or Real Surname" located at the left hand side. Then, we type in John there, and all emails accounts (no matter what username they have) that are related to name "John" (because we can have John Smith and John Doe) will appear. Then, we click on John Smith, and then we can work with Inbox folder and etc. This looks like a simple feature, however I looked at other Private email clients , but even they don't have this option. Is it possible to add this feature to Thunderbird? To summarize, I am asking about the function that will find a certain user account by its real name and/or surname among existing added 100 email accounts. I am not talking about function that does the search within all email messages.
Modified by James
If this type of request is something you do on a regular/periodic basis. You could consider having the mail account names more user friendly. Change the 'Account name:' in the Account Settings of the mail account to say: Either: John Smith Then 'John Smith' appears as mail account name in Folder Pane. OR John Smith - Fluffyunicorn@gmail.com Then 'John Smith - Fluffyunicorn@gmail.com' appears as mail account name in Folder Pane.
This may be easier to locate in Folder Pane than trying to remember the email address.
Alternative if person searching is asked to locate John Smiths account, but they cannot remember the email addresss/mail account name which you choose to display in the Folder Pane.
Set up a new address book which only contains names of people who have mail accounts. Enter the following First: John Last: Smith Display Name: John Smith Email: Fluffyunicorn@gmail.com
Then person could search: Menu app icon > Find > Search Addresses Select the address book select' Display Name' and 'Contains' and type: John Smith Click on 'Search' The email address should appear, so at least the person can then easily look for the email address which would be the same as the account name in Folder Pane.