Mozilla Thunderbird

Tips and tricks about Mozilla Thunderbid. Customizing the display, migrating the Thunderbird profile from Windows to GNU/Linux and so on…

• Download: thunderbird.net
  The Thunderbird Extended Support Releases (ESR) are mainstream releases, operating similarly to Mozilla Firefox ESR. They are stable for approximately one year before receiving feature updates :
  • Windows 32 bits Mozilla Thunderbird setup: download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-latest&os=win
  • Windows 64 bits Mozilla Thunderbird setup: Not available
  • GNU/Linux 32 bits Mozilla Thunderbird setup: download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-latest&os=linux
  • GNU/Linux 64 bits Mozilla Thunderbird setup: download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-latest&os=linux64
  • Max OSX Mozilla Thunderbird setup: download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-latest&os=osx
• wiki.mozilla.org/Releases
  Thunderbird approximately (i.e. not strictly) follows the ESR schedule listed there: wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar
  • Current Thunderbird release note: mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/notes
  • Past Thunderbird release notes: thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases
• Mozilla Thunderbird Blog – blog.thunderbird.net –:

  • Thunderbird for Android November 2024 Progress Report by Philipp Kewisch (10/12/2024 11:55)

    It’s been a while since our last update in August, and we’re glad to be back to share what’s been happening. Over the past few months, we’ve been fully focused on the Thunderbird for Android release, and now it’s time to catch you up. In this update, we’ll talk about how the launch went, the […] The post Thunderbird for Android November 2024 Progress Report appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.
  • Celebrating 20 Years of Thunderbird: Independence, Innovation and Community  by Natalie Ivanova (07/12/2024 10:00)

    Thunderbird turns 20 today. Such a huge milestone invites reflection on the past and excitement for the future. For two decades, Thunderbird has been more than just an email application – it has been a steadfast companion to millions of users, offering communication, productivity, and privacy. 20 Years Ago Today… Thunderbird’s journey began in 2003, […] The post Celebrating 20 Years of Thunderbird: Independence, Innovation and Community  appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.
  • Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest – November 2024 by Toby Pilling (03/12/2024 11:00)

    Hello Thunderbird Community! Another adventurous month is behind us, and the team has emerged victorious from a number of battles with code, quirks, bugs and performance issues. Here’s a quick summary of what’s been happening across the front and back end teams as some of the team heads into US Thanksgiving: Exchange Web Services support […] The post Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest – November 2024 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.
  • Maximize Your Day: Make Important Messages Stand Out with Filters by Monica Ayhens-Madon (19/11/2024 16:57)

    For the past two decades, I’ve been trying to get on Jeopardy. This is harder than answering a Final Jeopardy question in your toughest subject. Roughly a tenth of people who take the exam get invited to auditions, and only a tenth of those who make it to auditions make it to the Contestant Pool […] The post Maximize Your Day: Make Important Messages Stand Out with Filters appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.
  • VIDEO: Q&A with Mark Surman by Monica Ayhens-Madon (08/11/2024 17:57)

    Last month we had a great chat with two members of the Thunderbird Council, our community governance body. This month, we’re looking at the relationship between Thunderbird and our parent organization, MZLA, and the broader Mozilla Foundation. We couldn’t think of a better way to do this than sitting down for a Q&A with Mark […] The post VIDEO: Q&A with Mark Surman appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

• Wikipedia: History of Mozilla Thunderbird

• kb.mozillazine.org > Transferring data to a new profile - Thunderbird
• kb.mozillazine.org > Standard diagnostic - Thunderbird
• superuser.com > questions > tagged > thunderbird
• reddit.com > subreddits > Thunderbird

The rewriting of the Thunderbird 68's API breaks many extensions. That's why as of Thunderbird version 68, the following addons remains unsupported (outdated)

• Theme Font & Size Changer (Th. Version<68)
• Account Colors (Th. Version<68)

As of Thunderbird version 68 (also Firefox v.69), the syntax of the file chrome/UserChrome.css is simplified (no more namespace header neaded) but the css rule names may have changed. On October 31, 2019, except github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforTb sample files, the new customization rules remains undocumented.

Beware that the path chrome/UserChrome.css is case sensitive! Not created by default, this path is relative to the Thunderbird profile folder¹⁾. 100% manual customization of the file chrome/UserChrome.css:

• Official documentation (outdated and obsolete): kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserChrome.css
• Full 100% manual customizable CSS templates for Thunderbird 68+: github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforTb
• userchrome.org

Prerequisites as of Thunderbird version 68 (also Firefox v.69): One have to enable the following configuration variable: toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets (see this announce)

Simple example files /chrome/UserChrome.css:

All content of the Thunderbird window enlarged to 16pts:

/* File chrome/UserChrome.css for Thunderbird 68+
 * Prerequisites as of Thunderbird version 68:
 * The following variable shall be enabled: toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets
 */
 
/* _____ All content of the Thunderbird window enlarged to 16pts _____ */
:root {
  font-size: 16pt !important;
}

Screenshot of a Virtual Machine running Windows 10 with customized Thunderbird opened in a window :

The folder panel and the email list enlarged to 16pts:

/* File chrome/UserChrome.css for Thunderbird 68+
 * Prerequisites as of Thunderbird version 68:
 * The following variable shall be enabled: toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets
 */
 
/* _____ The email list enlarged to 16pts: _____ */
:-moz-any(#threadTree) { 
  font-size: 16pt !important;
}
 
/* _____ The folder panel enlarged to 16pts: _____ */
:-moz-any(#folderTree) { 
  font-size: 16pt !important;
}

1. On the source machine – Thunderbird off – : Save all the contents of the profile directory except the extension folder and the files user.js and prefs.js. This backup includes but is not limited to the folders calendar-data/ (Lightning), chrome/, Attachments/, ImapMail/ (IMAP account directories), Mail/ (local folder directories, pop accounts and RSS feeds), News/ (newsgroups), WebmailData/ (Webmail extension), and the .dat, .db, .json, .mab, and .sqlite files. Do not backup the files user.js and prefs.js
2. On the destination machine:
   1. Start then close Thunderbird
   2. Browse the folder of the newly created Thunderbird profile, then restore previously backed up directories and files to it
   3. Start Thunderbird, install the desired extensions, then test the send and receive
3. If additional manual customizations have been made in the user.js and prefs.js files of the original profile, edit these files on the original machine and then copy the concerned lines into the user.js and prefs.js files of the destination profile, avoiding any reference to an extension of the original machine and transposing any possible path so that it is valid in the destination profile

• Delete (or rename to .old) the key3.db file from the Thunderbird profile folder

• In the config editor, enable then variable mailnews.headers.showUserAgent to True, then restart Thunderbird. The user-agent of each email received will be displayed in the header plane
• Other older method: addons "Display Mail User Agent" from Ernst Jürgen's website

• Within the file prefs.js of the profile folder, add : user_pref("mail.compose.other.header", "my_user-agent");

I list on this page some Thunderbird extensions divided into different categories. Each Thunderbird extension is classified into one of the following 5 levels, depending on the level of use of the software: