Thunderbird email search fix

[webfork]

Having some problems with this and wanted to share my eventual solution.

Problem:

I have around 30,000 sent and received email messages archived from many different accounts and lately the search function has been giving me problems. Some searches find messages that don't exist anymore, some searches don't find messages that have been there since very early on. 50% of the reason I use Thunderbird is the great search, so this had me looking for alternatives.

Solution:

Fortunately the official solution worked ... the directory locations are different but the solutions still work if you just navigate to ThunderbirdPortable\data\profile rather than Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles/. I wasn't comfortable outright deleting the file so I renamed it .temp and let the program rebuild it.

I actually found the solution here first, which explores some other possible fixes. Additionally, I tried this trick: Right click Inbox, select "Properties" - choose "Repair Folder" but no dice.

[webfork]

This is yet another problem that I've been wrestling with forever so figured I'd post it here. Formerly I was using Rainlendar + Outlook + Google Calendar Sync, but that was tedious as well as causing a lot of duplicate calendar entries. Also, Google wouldn't hang on to the awesome categories icons that Rainlendar uses so on system reload they all went back to blank anyhow. Using a WebDav connection, I got a secure, open source solution that utilizes a program I already love.

This howto was done using Thunderbird 8.0 and Lightning 1.0.

There is a Google help doc that gives some information on this but misses a few key details.

1. Make sure your Google calendar has at least ones
2. Install the Lightning plugin and restart
3. Open the calendar (it should show up as a button at the top of the window
4. Select File - New Calendar
5. Choose "On the Network". Next.
6. Make sure you click CalDav and then type in the location. Also, check the Cache box.
7. In the blank, type

   Code: Select all

   https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/ [ your Google Calendar ID ] /events

   where "[your Google Calendar ID]" is just your gmail address. (I didn't test if this works with any Google App email address.)
   
   If you have more than one calendar on the same Google ID:

   Your Google Calendar ID for your primary calendar is just your email address, but for all other calendars the Calendar ID will be in the form of [ long string of characters]@group.calendar.google.com. You can get the Calendar ID by clicking the down arrow next to your calendar at calendar.google.com and selecting 'Calendar Settings'.

8. Click Next
9. Give the calendar a name (shorter is better) and a color (pastels are better)
10. Associate it with the related email address (hopefully you've already setup Thunderbird as an email client for your gmail account.
11. Click Finish
12. When prompted for a password just use the account username (not the entire address) and password. Make sure you type in your username and password right the first time because if you miss, fixing it is very annoying.

Optionally, double-click the calendar to change the refresh rate. Definitely less than the default 30 mins if you want to be sure all your changes are posted quickly. Or, to post changes manually, right-click the Calendar window on the right side of the screen and select "Reload Remote Calendars"

If you're disconnected, you can modify your calendar either on the Google or Thunderbird side and the changes will get propagated as soon as you reconnect.

Note: I didn't seem to be able to set up two WebDav calendars. I don't know why.