Thunderbird

Related articles
Firefox
Thunderbird
is an open source email, news, and chat client previously developed by the Mozilla Foundation.
Installation
Install
the
thunderbird
package, with a
language pack
if required.
Other versions include:
Thunderbird Beta
— Cutting edge features with relatively-good stability.
https://www.thunderbird.net/channel/
||
thunderbird-beta-bin
AUR
Thunderbird Nightly/Daily
— Experience the newest innovations with nightly releases (for those that want to work with breakages).
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/
||
thunderbird-nightly-bin
AUR
Betterbird
— Betterbird is a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird, Thunderbird on steroids.
https://www.betterbird.eu
||
betterbird-bin
AUR
A version overview, both past and future, can be read on
MozillaWiki:Releases
.
Securing
Thunderbird sends your system's internal IP address to the configured SMTP server as an argument to the HELO/ELHO SMTP command. This value can be overridden by setting
mail.smtpserver.default.hello_argument
to, for example,
localhost
. Setting this value may increase the spam score of messages you send. See
[1]
and
[2]
.
To hide Thunderbird's
User Agent
, set
mailnews.headers.useMinimalUserAgent
to
false
and create a new empty
general.useragent.override
string entry in the
#Config editor
.
JavaScript is disabled for message content but not for RSS news feeds. To disable set
javascript.enabled
to
false
in the
#Config editor
.
Note
Setting
javascript.enabled
to
false
also turns off Javascript in OAuth dialogs.
Setting
general.useragent.override
to an empty string is known to break Duo MFA. See
web-bugs#104558
.
Extensions
Birdtray
— System tray new mail notification which does not require extensions. Run Thunderbird with a system tray icon.
https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray
||
birdtray
AUR
SysTray-X
— system tray extension. Similar to FireTray but works with Thunderbird 68+.
https://github.com/Ximi1970/systray-x
||
systray-x-common
or
systray-x-kde
SOGo Connector
—  Lets you sync address books via CardDAV
https://sogo.nu/download.html#/frontends
||
thunderbird-sogo-connector-bin
AUR
Cardbook
— A new addressbook for Thunderbird based on the CARDDav and VCARD standards.
Cardbook AMO
||
OpenPGP: signing and encryption
From Thunderbird 78.2.1 onwards, this functionality is integrated into Thunderbird. This was previously provided by the Enigmail add-on, which is not compatible with Thunderbird 78+. To migrate keys from Enigmail to Thunderbird, as well as learn what is currently supported, see
Thunderbird OpenPGP FAQ
. Before migration, make sure that a strong passphrase is used for the master password. Otherwise the private key will not be properly protected.
Tips and tricks
Config editor
Thunderbird can be extensively configured by clicking the
Thunderbird Menu > Settings > General
and looking for the
Config Editor
button at the bottom of the page. 
Alternatively, if the menu bar is toggled the Config Editor button can be found by clicking
Edit > Settings > General
Set the default browser
Thunderbird uses the default browser as defined by the
XDG MIME Applications
. This is commonly modified by
desktop environments
(for example
GNOME
's Control Center:
Details > Default Applications > Web
).
This can be overridden with
network.protocol-handler.warn-external
in the
#Config editor
If the following is all set to
false
(default), set them to
true
and Thunderbird will ask you which application to use when you click on a link (remember to also check
"Remember my choice for .. links"
).
network.protocol-handler.warn-external.http
network.protocol-handler.warn-external.https
Plain text mode and font uniformity
Plain Text mode lets you view all your emails without HTML rendering and is available in
View > Message Body As
. This defaults to the
Monospace
font but the size is still inherited from original system fontconfig settings. The following example will overwrite this with Ubuntu Mono of 10 pixels (available in:
ttf-ubuntu-font-family
).
Remember to run
fc-cache -fv
to update system font cache. See
Font configuration
for more information.
~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <match target="pattern">
    <test qual="any" name="family"><string>monospace</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Ubuntu Mono</string></edit>
    <!-- For Thunderbird, lowering default font size to 10 for uniformity -->
    <edit name="pixelsize" mode="assign"><int>10</int></edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>
Migrate profile to another system
At first close a running Thunderbird. Then locate the profile folder
~/.thunderbird
and copy it recursively to a backup location.
Before starting Thunderbird on the new machine the first time, restore the profle from the backup location to
~/.thunderbird
.
For more details see
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer
.
Tip
The
ImportExportTools NG
add-on offers an option to export and import a profile folder.
Export and import
Before you start with Importing or Exporting tasks, backup your complete
~/.thunderbird
profile:
$ cp -R ~/.thunderbird /to/backup/folder/
If your accounts are broken or you want to join two different Thunderbird installations, you can install
ImportExportTools NG
add-on for both Thunderbird installations and following this just export and import all your data to the new installation.
Change the default sorting order
Thunderbird (up to at least 31.4.0-1) sorts mail by date with the oldest on top without any threading. While this can be changed per folder, it is easier to set a sane default instead as described
here
.
Set these preferences in the
#Config editor
:
mailnews.default_sort_order = 2 (descending)
mailnews.default_view_flags = 1 (Threaded view)
Maildir support
The default message store format is mbox. To enable the use of Maildir, see
MozillaWiki:Thunderbird/Maildir
. You basically have to set the following preference in the
#Config editor
:
mail.serverDefaultStoreContractID = @mozilla.org/msgstore/maildirstore;1
Some limitations up to at least 31.4.0-1: only the "tmp" and "cur" directories are supported. The "new" directory is completely ignored. The read state of mails are stored in a separate ".msf" file, so initially all local mail using Maildir will be marked as unread even when located in the "cur" directory. It is also possible to change this setting in the regular user interface now: Go to
Menu > Settings > General > Indexing > Message Store Type for new accounts
and choose
File per message (maildir)
.
Spell checking
Install
hunspell
and a hunspell language dictionary and restart Thunderbird.
See the Firefox article for
how to set the default spell checking language
.
Native notifications
Make sure that
mail.biff.use_system_alert
in the
#Config editor
is set to "true" (default). This option means that extensions (such as Gnome Integration) are not needed for these newer versions of Thunderbird.
You might also need to install
a notification server
.
Sound
Thunderbird can be configured to play sounds when new emails are received and when calendar reminders are dispatched. This requires
libcanberra
.
Theming tweaks
Thunderbird should conform to
GTK#Themes
as defined on your system.  However, two tweaks are desirable for full consistency.  These are most beneficial for dark themes.
To view the body of emails with colors following your theme:
Go to
Menu > Settings > General
Find the
Language & Appearance
section
Click the
Colors
button
Check
Use system colors
Set the option for
Override the colors specified by the content with my selection above
to
Always
or
Only with High Contrast themes
To view Lightning calendar with colors following your theme:
Go to
Menu > Preferences > Preferences
Select the
Calendar
tab
Check
Optimize colors for accessibility
Further customization can be attained by creating and editing a
userchrome.css
.  See
Firefox/Tweaks#General user interface CSS settings
and
Mozillazine's userchrome page
.
Keyboard bindings
Thunderbird
unfortunately lacks
an easy way to disable single-key bindings, such that pressing e.g. "a" on the keyboard will not archive a message. The
tbkeys-lite
extension provides a means of editing and deleting such bindings and is available for Thunderbird 68.0 onwards.
Use OpenPGP with external GnuPG
Starting with v78.1, Thunderbird now ships with integrated OpenPGP support previously provided by Add-Ons like Enigmail. It will offer you to migrate your existing Enigmail keys into Thunderbird upon the first start after the update. If you do not want to store your private keys inside Thunderbird, it is possible to use Thunderbird with an external GnuPG installation in order to keep your keys safe or use a Smartcard.
To view any OpenPGP keys stored inside Thunderbird:
Go to
Menu > Tools > OpenPGP Key Manager
Disable
View > Display Keys From Other People
for better visibility of your own keys. Private keys are displayed in bold.
Review present keys and possibly delete them.
Import public keys of any external private keys you want to use using
File > Import public key(s) from file
. See
GnuPG#Export your public key
.
To enable external GnuPG support in Thunderbird:
Ensure you have
relevant keys available
or
created
.
Open the
#Config editor
Search for
mail.openpgp.allow_external_gnupg
and set its value to
true
Go to
Menu > Account Settings
and select the account you want to use.
Click
Manage Identities
and select the Identity you want to edit.
Click
Edit > End-To-End Encryption > Add Key
.
Select
Use your external key through GnuPG
and paste your key ID from GnuPG.
Note
The Secret Key ID is the last 16 characters of your primary key's fingerprint.
Refer to
MozillaWiki:Thunderbird:OpenPGP:Smartcards
for further instructions and specialized configurations.
Wayland
Starting with version 128, Thunderbird defaults to
Wayland
instead of XWayland and does not require any configuration. Older versions of Thunderbird support opting into
Wayland
mode via an
environment variable
.
$ MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 thunderbird
Tor
To route the connection to the server through the Tor network the proxy settings must be set accordingly.
Make sure you have
tor
installed and that the process is running.
In Thunderbird go to
Menu > Settings > General
. In the
Network & Disk Space > Connection
section, click on the
Settings...
button.
Select
Manual proxy configuration
, enter
localhost
as SOCKS Host and 9050 as Port (9050 is the default; it may be configured differently in /etc/tor/torrc). Select
Proxy DNS when using SOCKS v5
.
Troubleshooting
LDAP Segfault
An
LDAP clash (Bugzilla#292127)
arises on systems configured to use it to fetch user information. A possible
workaround
consists of renaming the conflicting bundled LDAP library.
Error: Incoming server already exists
If you want to reinstall a previously deleted account with the same account data, you might get a popup with "Incoming server already exists". See bug
Bugzilla#1121151
for details. Unfortunately, if you get this error you can now only clean reinstall Thunderbird:
Make a backup of your current profile:
$ cp -R ~/.thunderbird /to/backup/folder/
Export all your Accounts, Calendar and Feeds via an add-on like it is written in
Export section
of this Wiki.
Close Thunderbird
Remove all your data by deleting your current Thunderbird folder
rm -R ~/.thunderbird/
.
Start Thunderbird
Create your mail accounts, feeds and calendars (empty).
Install the
ImportExportTools NG
add-on
Import all your data.
Thunderbird UI freezes when receiving a new message
If Thunderbird is configured to show an alert when a new message arrives, or at launch, the lack of a notification daemon may freeze the interface (white screen) for many seconds. You can solve this issue by disabling alerts or installing a
notification server
.
LC_TIME environment variable not respected
Thunderbird should use the
LC_TIME
environment variable for localization, but it might not do so in all contexts. Some problems can be mitigated by setting
Menu
>
Preferences
>
Preferences
>
Advanced
>
Date and Time Formatting
to
Regional settings locale
, a setting which was introduced in Thunderbird 56.
With version 60, Gecko started using the
CLDR project
for localization, including datetime formatting, which uses different settings than most other software based purely on
LC_TIME
. There is a
bug report
for this issue that includes workarounds with varying effects. To achieve ISO-8601-formatted dates in Thunderbird and a week beginning on Monday, use
LC_TIME=lt_LT thunderbird
.
Starting in Thunderbird version 91, one can set a number of preferences to make Thunderbird compliant with ISO-8601. Most programs can be set to ISO-8601 by setting your region locale to
en_DK
, but by default Thunderbird ignores regional locale preferences. See
[3]
for details.
Authentication failure while connecting to server imap.gmail.com
error when using OAuth2 with G Suite account
Sometimes Thunderbird fails to log in to G Suite with
Authentication failure while connecting to server imap.gmail.com
error. It can be fixed with setting
general.useragent.compatMode.firefox
setting to
true
in
#Config editor
and then passing authentication stage again.
Outlook 365 SMTP fails to authenticate with OAuth2 authentication
Apparently by default, SMTP authentication is disabled for Outlook 365 accounts. Use the Microsoft 365 admin center to enable it. Refer to:
Enable SMTP AUTH for specific mailboxes
.
Difficulties using Thunderbird to access Outlook 365 accounts
Version 102.7.0 of Thunderbird included changes to the OAUTH2 implementation that affected access to Outlook 365 accounts (see
[4]
and
[5]
). Affected users should directly upgrade to 102.7.1 or newer.
Cannot login to access Outlook 365 accounts
If, after being redirected to your institution's login page, inserting credentials and pressing the login button, you are being redirected to the same login page, try to:
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