Is there a thunderbird plugin to modify IMAP emails?

Sometimes I receive emails with subjects like "As discussed" or "(empty)". At that point I know what it is about but for later reference I'd like to change the subject into something slightly more useful. The emails are accessed via IMAP, thunderbird can basically modify them (as the detach attachments feature shows), so is there a way to modify the subject line as well?

edit saving a modified draft is not what I want, since that changes the sender to myself and the date to the modification date

Tobias Kienzler

Posted 2011-11-15T08:18:31.990

Reputation: 3 262

related: http://superuser.com/questions/110983/edit-subject-line-of-received-email-in-thunderbird-3-0 (the edit Draft solution is not helping me since it modifies the sender and the date)

– Tobias Kienzler – 2011-11-15T12:47:27.687

Answers

Two other add-ons that may possibly do the job :

TB Header Tools Extension
This extension hasn’t been updated for years. However here is a way to get it working again.

HeaderToolsLite
Has an option for forcing changes with IMAP accounts.

harrymc

Posted 2011-11-15T08:18:31.990

Reputation: 306 093

1+1 for pointing towards HeaderToolsLite. Works like a charm :) – andreas-h – 2012-02-24T16:59:29.183

I use the EditEmailSubject extension, works great for me.

CGA

Posted 2011-11-15T08:18:31.990

Reputation: 3 767

hey thanks, it looks good. Unfortunately it does not seem to sync back to the IMAP server though, i.e. when I access a renamed email from another machine, the renaming is undone. This also happens when moving edited mails to other folders. But +1 since it might work nicely for POP3 at least – Tobias Kienzler – 2011-11-15T11:29:21.463

That's true, this is a weakness of this addon. – CGA – 2011-11-15T20:24:22.960

Maybe a bounty will motivate someone to modify it :-7 – Tobias Kienzler – 2011-11-23T08:31:54.850

Not needed. As of New Year's, it works! (You just have to enable the IMAP option.) – colan – 2012-04-15T22:52:31.217

-2

I'm not sure what your asking, however....

If you click Reply you can change the subject to whatever you want, and then save it as a draft. The drafts would sync, and you'd be able to sort your drafts by subject that you give them.

wizlog

Posted 2011-11-15T08:18:31.990

Reputation: 12 320

thanks, but I want to change the subject stored in a received email without modifying anything else. The drafts trick will put me in as sender and change the mail's date to "now", making things just as bad as a useless mail subject – Tobias Kienzler – 2011-11-23T18:06:52.970

What you doing can't be done. You can't (legally) fool your mail server into thinking a subject is something it isn't, while still retaining the original message headers.

I would suggest catagorizing them using labels like this and this

– wizlog – 2011-11-23T22:08:43.867

I don't want to retain the original message headers. And a modified version of an email can be stored on an IMAP server, as the native thunderbird possibility to remove (or detach) attachments shows – Tobias Kienzler – 2011-11-23T22:11:53.787

What mail server are you using? – wizlog – 2011-11-23T22:13:37.827

My university runs horde/IMP, but from what I read in the context of the TB Header Tools Extension mentioned in harrymc's answer, it should also work on gmail and probably any other IMAP server - why are you asking?

– Tobias Kienzler – 2011-11-23T22:22:21.287

Are you looking for something that works with Gmail? If you are, I think you'd find and answer faster. – wizlog – 2011-11-23T22:26:13.390

no, IMAP servers in general, especially horde/IMP but I don't see why this shouldn't apply to any IMAP service – Tobias Kienzler – 2011-11-23T22:31:06.540