Thunderbird

Getting rid of the ‘new mail’ alert in the Windows system tray

Chris Ilias 13 Comments

Mozilla Thunderbird users may have noticed that turning off “Show an alert” for when new messages arrive, does not get rid of the alert that appears in the Windows system tray.

There’s actually a Windows feature (I don’t know if it’s on anything other than XP), that lets you to disable that alert.
On the very edge of the system tray, right-click and select “Customize Notifications” in the content menu.
Select the Thunderbird item, and using the drop-down menu, choose “Always Hide“.

Update: Another method to get to “Customize Notifications” is via the Windows Control Panel -> Taskbar and Start Menu. Select the “Taskbar” tab, and under “Notification area”, click on “Customize”.

Removing ‘Remove All’

Chris Ilias 14 Comments

Here’s a question: Using any of Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, the Mozilla Suite, or Netscape, have you ever purposely clicked on the ‘Remove All’ button, in the password manager?

Follow up question: Have you ever clicked on it by accident?

Clicking on it by accident, is easy, when it sits right beside ‘Remove’ button. Luckily, the closest I’ve come to that, is removing all cookies, not passwords. The scary part is that there is no “Are you sure” prompt, asking for confirmation. One accidental click, and ‘poof’, data is gone.

I’ve been able to avoid this by removing the ‘Remove All’ button. If you’re using Firefox or Thunderbird, add the following script to your userChrome.css file, to remove the ‘Remove All’ button from the password manager:

#removeAllSignons {display: none !important;}

Newsgroups automatically updating in Thunderbird

Chris Ilias

People using Mozilla Thunderbird to read newsgroups may like this one.
Notice how when you expand the list of subscribed newsgroups in the folder pane, Thunderbird automatically connects to the server, to update the unread/total messages count on each subscribed newsgroup? Then, when you click on a newsgroup, Thunderbird automatically downloads new messages. Both actions can be disabled.

In Thunderbird, go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General.
Click on Config Editor.
There are two preference settings to look for, in the Config Editor:
news.update_unread_on_expand and news.get_messages_on_select.

To prevent Thunderbird from updating the unread/total messages count, when you expand the list of subscribed newsgroups, search for the preference setting news.update_unread_on_expand, and double-click on it (setting the value to false).
To prevent Thunderbird from automatically downloading new messages when you click on a newsgroup, search for the preference setting news.get_messages_on_select, and double-click on it (setting the value to false).

Outlook and OE address book support in Thunderbird

Chris Ilias 48 Comments

Mozilla Thunderbird and SeaMonkey (and even the Mozilla Suite and Netscape 7) can actually be set up to use your Outlook Express address book, and/or your Outlook Contacts list. It’s just another one of those features that are not in the user interface.

To make Thunderbird use your Outlook Express address book, close Thunderbird, and add the following lines to your prefs.js file:
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.OE.description", "Outlook Express");
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.OE.dirType", 3);
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.OE.uri", "moz-aboutlookdirectory://oe/");

For Outlook Contacts, use these lines:
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Outlook.description", "Outlook");
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Outlook.dirType", 3);
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Outlook.uri", "moz-aboutlookdirectory://op/");

One important note: in order for it to work with Outlook, Outlook must be set as the system default mail client.

Interestingly enough, it appears this feature goes back to Mozilla 1.0.

SeaMonkey and Firefox/Thunderbird share more than I thought.

Chris Ilias 5 Comments

Some of you may be aware of my webpage that compares the differences between Mozilla Suite versus Firefox and Thunderbird. With the impending release of SeaMonkey 1.0, I decided to create an equivalent page comparing SeaMonkey against Firefox and Thunderbird. Because SeaMonkey uses the Mozilla 1.8 codebase, I figured the list of differences would shrink; but I was surprised by how much it shrank. This is specifically because one product may have a user interface for a feature, while the other doesn’t.

For instance:
– Scam detection: In Thunderbird, you can go to Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Email Scams, and check mark the box. There’s no menu for it in SeaMonkey, but all you need to do is enter about:config in the browser location bar, and search for the pref mail.phishing.detection.enabled. Double-click on it, to toggle between on (true) and off (false).

– Anti-Virus support: In Thunderbird, you can go to Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Anti-Virus, and check mark the box. Again, there’s no menu for it in SeaMonkey, but all you need to do is enter about:config in the browser location bar, and add the Boolean pref mailnews.downloadToTempFile. Setting the value to true enables the feature, while setting it to false disables it. (The default is false.)

– Marking Junk as read: In SeaMonkey, go to Tools -> Junk Mail Controls, and for each account, you’ll see a check box for “Mark messages determined to be Junk as read”. The check box isn’t in Thunderbird, but the feature is there. Go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General, and click on “Config Editor” (finally, a user-friendly term for aboutconfig). Search for a pref called mail.server.default.markAsReadOnSpam. Copy the name of that pref, and clear the config search field. By looking at your other preference settings, you should be able to determine the server number of the account you want to set the preference for. Once you’ve done that, add an edited version of the Boolean preference you copied, replacing “default” with the server and number of the account you are editing. (eg. mail.server.server2.markAsReadOnSpam ) (Restarting Thunderbird is required)

Newsgroup subscriptions like bookmarks

Chris Ilias

I’ve been thinking…
Subscribing to newsgroups is very similar to subscribing to RSS feeds. I use a Firefox extension called Sage to read RSS feeds. Sage contains the list of subscribed feeds within a folder in my Firefox bookmarks. This allows me to:
– sort the list via ‘sort by’.
– re-arrange feeds via drag and drop
– rename feeds
– add separators in the list

These would all be great features for the list of subscribed newsgroups in Thunderbird. [150274, 132247] Instead, Mozilla plugs straight into the RC file. Perhaps, it’s time to put a buffer between two, allowing the program to customize the list.

I’m not a coder, so I don’t know how complicated it would be, but it’s just an idea.

Marking folders/newsgroups read on exit

Chris Ilias 1 Comment


Every once in a while, someone asks if Mozilla Thunderbird can automatically mark a folder or newsgroup read when you exit that folder or newsgroup. (Why: I don’t know. Automatic marking of all messages as read on exit, is one of the reasons I dislike web-based forums.)

Thunderbird 1.5 can do this, but the setting is hidden. Go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General, and click on “Config Editor.” In the resulting window, right-click on any of the listed preferences, and select New -> Boolean. The preference name to enter depends:
mailnews.mark_message_read.nntp for Newsgroups
mailnews.mark_message_read.pop3 for POP3 email folders
mailnews.mark_message_read.imap for IMAP email folders
mailnews.mark_message_read.rss for RSS folders
mailnews.mark_message_read.none for folders in “Local Folders”

Set the value to true. Close the Config Editor, and click on “OK” in the Options panel, and you’re done.

Auto-complete email address with default domain

Chris Ilias 8 Comments


Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 users may have noticed that when you start typing an email address in the mail composition window, Thunderbird no longer automatically adds the default domain to it. You can turn this feature back on, if you’d like. Go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General, and click on “Config Editor.” In the resulting window, search for the setting mail.identity.default.autocompleteToMyDomain. Double-click on it. That should change the value to true. Close the Config Editor, and click on “OK” in the Options panel, and you’re done.

Limiting The Attachment Window Size in Thunderbird

Chris Ilias 8 Comments

[for Mozilla Thunderbird users]
Ever get an email message in Thunderbird, with so many files attached, the attachment pane takes over the message viewing area? In Mozilla Thunderbird, you can set a limit to the height of the attachments pane.

Open a text editor, such as Notepad, and paste this text:
#attachmentList {max-height: 4em !important;}

Save the file as userChrome.css (not userChrome.css.txt), and put it the \chrome\ folder of your Thunderbird profile folder.

However, there is one caveat. If you do receive a message with so many attachments, that the height limit is exceeded, there will not be a scrollbar for you to browse through the rest. You can use the menu File–>Attachments to see the full list.

UPDATE: Try the script in comment #1 first.

Changing the link colours in Thunderbird

Chris Ilias 4 Comments

[for Mozilla Thunderbird users]
The Mozilla Application Suite allows the user to customize the colour of hyperlinks. This setting also affects email and newsgroup messages. However, because it is a browser setting, the options panel for it is not in Mozilla Thunderbird. Once again, this is one of those things that you can change in Thunderbird, through hidden settings.

The best way to do it, is using the AboutConfig extension, who’s function will be part of the upcoming Thunderbird 1.5.
To figure out what colours you want, open a message composition window in HTML mode. (If you see a toolbar that lets you change the font, size, colour, etc., you are in HTML mode. If not, hold down Shift, as you click on the Write icon.)
Open the colour picker.

Pick the colour you want to use, and copy the HTML colour string, at the bottom.

Now open AboutConfig [Tools -> about:config], and look for the setting browser.anchor_color. Double-click on it, and change the value to the HTML colour string you copied earlier. Click OK, close the about:config window, and you’re done.
If you ever want to change the setting back to the default, right-click on the setting in AboutConfig, and select Reset.

Some additional notes:
The setting for unvisited links is browser.anchor_color
The setting for active links is browser.active_color
(Since Thunderbird doesn’t have a browser history, there are no such thing as visited links in Thunderbird)

You can also change these settings using a user.js file, as described here.