Saved Search – MozillaZine Knowledge Base
Thunderbird has a Saved Search function that is really the best idea yet for email. Rivals Gmail’s Labels – (Thunderbird also has support for labels). I am testing it now to see if this will replace ALL my folders and allow me to have ONE BIG inbox plus virtual folders? And no filters at all to sort thee mail as it arrives? Could that work? Right now it is working well for me in some test folders. I particularly like the way I can set it up to have my replies go into the folder next to the sent messages. The fuctionality is very like playlists in iTunes and Sets in Flickr. So far I have not been able to mix AND and OR searchers. In iTunes a smart playlist can search other playlists, and that is how I acheive that there.
A Saved Search folder is a “virtual folder” in the sense that it merely displays a set of messages that meet the search criteria, while the actual messages remain stored elsewhere. If you select and delete a message inside a Saved Search folder it will get deleted from its actual location, but if you delete a Saved Search folder itself all of the actual messages will remain intact. Moreover, unlike a normal folder, if you modify the search criteria for a Saved Search folder its virtual “contents” will be accordingly updated. Your Saved Search folders will remain in the folders pane even after you exit and restart Thunderbird, until you delete them, thus giving you quick and convenient access to your pre-defined searches.
Having sent and received emails in the same area makes more sense when following a thread. I’m experimenting with this too.
However, the handy search toolbar can only search for Subject or Sender, so it is impossible to search for messages from John Smith AND messages to John Smith from me.
Being able to mix AND and OR in searches would help, but I also haven’t figured out if this is possible yet.
This may be helpful: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=299109