How to use Betterbird flatpak as default email client

[seasoned_geek]

After you install the flatpak, open a terminal

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sudo nano /usr/share/xfce4/helpers/betterbird.desktop

paste in

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[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Icon=betterbird
Type=X-XFCE-Helper
Name[am]=Betterbird
Name=Betterbird
Keywords=email;mail;inbox;message;communication;
StartupNotify=false
X-XFCE-Binaries=flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird;
X-XFCE-Category=MailReader
X-XFCE-Commands=%B;
X-XFCE-CommandsWithParameter=/usr/lib/xfce4/xfce4-compose-mail flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird %B "mailto:%s";/usr/lib/xfce4/xfce4-compose-mail flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird %B "mailto:%s";

exit and save. By itself this appears to do noting. The next thing also appears to not work without this.

menu->Default Applications

choose "other" for mail reader and paste in the following

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flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird "mailto:%s"

Do not include the %B here. That will blank everything out.

REBOOT

Open your browser and go to the Betterbird support page. Find the "Contact us" link in the text.





Click it. You should see an email edit window open with To and Subject filled in.

[siamhie]

Well done and thanks for the tip for others who may be using Betterbird.

[dreamer]

After you install the flatpak, open a terminal

Code: Select all

sudo nano /usr/share/xfce4/helpers/betterbird.desktop

paste in

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[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Icon=betterbird
Type=X-XFCE-Helper
Name[am]=Betterbird
Name=Betterbird
Keywords=email;mail;inbox;message;communication;
StartupNotify=false
X-XFCE-Binaries=flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird;
X-XFCE-Category=MailReader
X-XFCE-Commands=%B;
X-XFCE-CommandsWithParameter=/usr/lib/xfce4/xfce4-compose-mail flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird %B "mailto:%s";/usr/lib/xfce4/xfce4-compose-mail flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird %B "mailto:%s";

exit and save. By itself this appears to do noting. The next thing also appears to not work without this.

menu->Default Applications

choose "other" for mail reader and paste in the following

Code: Select all

flatpak run eu.betterbird.Betterbird "mailto:%s"

Do not include the %B here. That will blank everything out.

REBOOT

Open your browser and go to the Betterbird support page. Find the "Contact us" link in the text.





Click it. You should see an email edit window open with To and Subject filled in.

As an XFCE user I had to quote your post. Thanks for taking the time to figuring out XFCE Default Applications GUI. That GUI is probably the worst thing about XFCE in my opinion.

Here is how you do the same thing in Cinnamon (just tested) and many other desktop environments:
Install Betterbird Flatpak (set up an email account) and choose it as your default email application from Preferred Applications.

Then click the link you posted and confirm mailto functionality works: "You should see an email edit window open with To and Subject filled in."

[b3ta]

Thank you for that, @seasoned_geek; very useful.

The quality of Xfce's documentation has long been a thorn in my side. Last night I also had a look at some of the files in /usr/share/xfce4/helpers, but it would be great to have a documentation reference for more of this stuff.

I didn't know about Betterbird, and will definitely move to that when I redo my laptop (soon, owing to Debian stopping its backports for the release I'm on): I am tired of struggling with Thunderbird over things like font size, date representation, and changing my fonts in the middle of emails without its editor showing it. Not to mention (well, I am) the developers apparently believing that a time-out provides a sufficient safety margin to delete everything you've marked in a folder that you want to move from that folder to another instead of waiting until the move is complete.

[RedGreen925]

I didn't know about Betterbird, and will definitely move to that when I redo my laptop (soon, owing to Debian stopping its backports for the release I'm on):

I hear about it few years ago, I use the .tar.bz2 you can download from their website in my ~/bin directory it is self contained so no unnecessary extra crud involved in running it. If the desktop you use respects the standard desktop file for launching applications from its menu then this will work on any such one of them. I use it on my Debian and Devuan both systemd free systems.

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zeus@9600k:~$ cat .local/share/applications/betterbird.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name=Betterbird
Categories=Network;Email;News;Office;
MimeType=message/rfc822;x-scheme-handler/mailto;text/calendar;text/x-vcard;
Exec=/home/zeus/bin/betterbird/betterbird-bin
Icon=/home/zeus/bin/betterbird/chrome/icons/default/default256.png