How do I define a task (a recurring email), other than just its schedule.
I pulled down Events And Tasks, created a new task, accepted the default calendar, chose custom for Repeat, specified day 2 of every 4 months, effective 1/2/2016. I guessed that I had to be up & running (I'm not always) & chose 9AM to 5PM. I provided a title and description. I experimented with Convert to Message, which puts a well-formed email in Unsent Messages. I have a test task for every day, and no email is being sent.
Chosen solution
I only know what the provider tells me.
If Events and Tasks doesn't enable me to define what the task does, then it seems to be a rather useless feature.
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (5)
just what is it your trying to do?
As I read it your trying to send an email on some sort of schedule. Where this email comes from I have no idea.
My wife's ISP will delete her account if there is insufficient activity. Her activity comes in random bursts, but probably often enough. But to be sure, I want to generate an email from her to her every 4 months. This feature doesn't show me how to set up any task, just the when, not the what. The closest that I've come is Convert To Message, which puts a well-formed email in Unsent Messages, containing my title as the subject and my description as the message body, but no clue as to how to make it happen. It even filled in the FROM, leaving it to me to only fill in the TO. It seems to want to do what I want, but there is no final step. As a backup, I enabled Reminder, but that is not automatic.
Contact your provider to confirm this, but in all cases I have seen in the past, checking the account for new mail is sufficient to keep it open. Certainly GMX, Outlook/ Hotmai Gmail and Yahoo work this way. have never heard of anyone actually requiring mail to be either received or sent. As you say their might not be any reason for extended periods to send or receive mail.
Given Thunderbird will check the account every time it is opened, and probably every 15 minutes while it is opened, if the account is set up in Thunderbird, then all that is required is to open Thunderbird once every month or so. But I assume you are doing it far more frequently than that.
Chosen Solution
I only know what the provider tells me.
If Events and Tasks doesn't enable me to define what the task does, then it seems to be a rather useless feature.
Thunderbird won't send messages without user assistance, so however you go about it, you'll have to hit "Send" yourself. So all Lightning can offer you is a periodic reminder to send a message. And even something like cron or Windows Task Scheduler could open or run Thunderbird, possibly with a pre-defined message, but you'd still have to manually press send.
Try the Send Later add-on. It allows a recurring action (sending a message) to be set up.