Can I delete the HTML part of a received multipart email?
I couldn't find this in any forum (other than some very old threads that are no longer applicable or relevant), and I couldn't find an extension/add-on that does that either (or rather, I did find one, but it's discontinued and not compatible with current Thunderbird), but I want to store only the plain-text part of multipart messages (text + HTML) that I receive, deleting the HTML part.
The reason for this is that I need to save disk space. I'm a digital hoarder, and I archive every relevant email message I receive (I only don't store spam that escapes through the cracks and reaches me, and such disposable messages as 2FA login codes and the like). I have several sound reasons to do that, but old messages have been useful to me as reference countless times. I have about 86,000 emails stored, sorted into a variety of message folders by topic, correspondent, etc. Some date as far back as 1996, having survived lots of account, email client, and hardware migrations through diligent backups and restores.
This results in a very large disk usage, and I must minimize it, for both space itself and backup time reasons. And the difference in size can be dramatic. Just one newsletter that I'm subscribed to sends me 3-4 messages a day, of which I'll probably keep two, but each full message is about 120–150 kB. Stripped of the HTML (and still totally readable and functional), that drops to just 10–12 kB. Now multiply that difference by the volume in one year.
I'm testing and evaluating Thunderbird to replace my current email client, which is excellent and designed for power users, but also very buggy, they're slow to fix the bugs, and this is getting on my nerves. That's why I'm looking for an alternative, and so far, Thunderbird is doing an excellent job in ticking off the list of features I need (and passed my message import tests from the old mailer with flying colors), except for this one feature, which can be a dealbreaker.
Any suggestions? Thank you very much in advance.
All Replies (3)
There are also messages that are just HTML. What I think you want is to convert HTML to plain text. And a large part of the content are the headers. Anyway, this product (which I have not used) may be what you're seeking:
https://www.coolutils.com/TotalHTMLConverter/HTM-to-Text-In-Batch
david said
There are also messages that are just HTML. What I think you want is to convert HTML to plain text. And a large part of the content are the headers. Anyway, this product (which I have not used) may be what you're seeking: ...
No, David, sorry, but that's not what I want, and that product is not what I need. I'm not interested in plain-text visualization or in converting HTML into text. I'm interested in saving disk space by deleting the HTML part of multipart messages.
Such messages (which can also be sent by Thunderbird) contain several parts, and may contain one part with the text in HTML and another with the same text stripped of any tagging. Other parts may contain attachments, if any — that's how they're organized in a message (and Thunderbird can delete attachments, I've already seen that it can; since the HTML is also just a "part" in this format, Thunderbird should be able to delete it as well).
I'm aware that the headers also take up some space, but they pale in comparison with what some professional emails do with their HTML part. They don't just add a short tag here and there for bold or Italics. They are complex Web pages of their own, complete with long JavaScript routines, embedded cascaded style sheets, division formatting, and much more, not to mention that they often use inefficient, verbose, and repetitive HTML code (not just merely "tagging"). This is exactly why (correct me if I'm wrong) Thunderbird must use Gecko, the same HTML rendering engine in Firefox — it needs nearly all the bells and whistles of a full-fledged browser. The result is a monster-sized message. See my example of the newsletter in my initial question above.
And I'm also aware that some messages don't contain an alternative plain-text part. I don't intend to delete the HTML in such cases. My current mailer not only allows me to delete the HTML part, it automatically detects if the message doesn't have a plain-text version and refuses to delete the HTML in such cases, for safety. It can also show me the two parts separately and even allows me to configure which I want to see by default. Maybe that would be asking too much (I said that it's a product for power email users), but I'd be happy just with the option to manually decide that.
Ilungisiwe ngu Goytá
There is an addon called : 'Header Tools Lite'
This allows you to edit the actual source of email, but I would advise you to only use it if you feel confident you know what you are doing.
You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.