How to set-up Thunderbird with 1 e-mail account on 2 computers without the messages being marked as read?
Hi all,
I'm having a minor issue at the office. We have about 20 e-mail addresses that me and my colleague need to be able to access every day. I've set up Thunderbird on both our computers, so far so good. We both receive all the e-mails. Problem is, when one of the computers logs in before the other, all messages are marked as "Read" even when you don't open any messages. What can I do about this? He needs to be able to access the account and read up on activity, but he leaves the unread mails for me so I can answer them. It's hard to identify manually which ones are read and which ones aren't once he logged in since they're then all marked as read(except for those which I marked unread manually).
I hope my question is a bit clear, if not feel free to ask questions.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Friendly regards,
Sven
Chosen solution
With imap you see a remote view of whatever is set on the server. The purpose of imap being that everyone who uses same mail account sees the same folders and emails and settings as set on server. When you select to open an unread email, it is set as read on the server and therefore anyone else will see whatever is set on the server, hence already marked as read.
Options: 1. After reading, manually reset to 'unread' status.
2. Change settings to not auto mark as read. 'Menu icon' > 'Options' > 'Options' > 'Display' > 'Advanced' tab Reading: uncheck: 'Automatically mark messages as read'
3. Copy incoming emails into 'Local Folders' mail account. These copies will not be on server, so you could read them and mark as read for your own working copy, stored in your profile on your computer.
Only issue is that if everyone uses any of these methods, then who actually can mark message as read on server?
One way would be to use tags with eg: option 1 or 2, to say who has read email, so if there is only two people, then you can see if email has been left or set as 'unread' and has a tag saying person one has read it, second person could read and set as 'read'.
If you were both using POP then you can only get access to server Inbox. In this case a copy is downloaded to each computer and all marking as read is separate for each computer. You would need to make sure that when setting up pop mail accounts they keep a copy on the server. You would also need to come to an agreement that deleted emails can be deleted off server by either person or never delete off server and someone would need to maintain the server to stop it from reaching its quota of space.
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Are you using IMAP or POP? And is it the same on both computers?
Hi Zenos,
We're using IMAP on both computers.
Chosen Solution
With imap you see a remote view of whatever is set on the server. The purpose of imap being that everyone who uses same mail account sees the same folders and emails and settings as set on server. When you select to open an unread email, it is set as read on the server and therefore anyone else will see whatever is set on the server, hence already marked as read.
Options: 1. After reading, manually reset to 'unread' status.
2. Change settings to not auto mark as read. 'Menu icon' > 'Options' > 'Options' > 'Display' > 'Advanced' tab Reading: uncheck: 'Automatically mark messages as read'
3. Copy incoming emails into 'Local Folders' mail account. These copies will not be on server, so you could read them and mark as read for your own working copy, stored in your profile on your computer.
Only issue is that if everyone uses any of these methods, then who actually can mark message as read on server?
One way would be to use tags with eg: option 1 or 2, to say who has read email, so if there is only two people, then you can see if email has been left or set as 'unread' and has a tag saying person one has read it, second person could read and set as 'read'.
If you were both using POP then you can only get access to server Inbox. In this case a copy is downloaded to each computer and all marking as read is separate for each computer. You would need to make sure that when setting up pop mail accounts they keep a copy on the server. You would also need to come to an agreement that deleted emails can be deleted off server by either person or never delete off server and someone would need to maintain the server to stop it from reaching its quota of space.
Thank you! The tags will be our go to solution. Thanks again :)