Mozilla Thunderbird is, in my opinion, the absolute best free e-mail program available. It doesn’t have the vulnerabilities found with Outlook, primarily due to the fact that it is not an “attack target” like Microsoft products. Even when vulnerabilities are found, they are quickly patched by the community of developers that support Thunderbird. We’ve put together a list of tips to make your use of the Thunderbird email application more enjoyable.
If you have a specific question regarding how to do something with Thunderbird, post a comment below and if we have a solution we will include the answer on either this tips page or in a separate tutorial.
Where do I find the download for Thunderbird?
You can find the most current version at the Mozilla Thunderbird download page. Installation is pretty simple. If you are using Outlook, Eudora or another e-mail client, you can easily import your address book and messages during the installation.
How do I include the previous message text when I forward e-mails?
We found this to be one of the annoying default features with Thunderbird. Unless you change the settings, when you forward a message with Thunderbird it will include the forwarded message as an attachment. I personally prefer that the forwarded text be included in the body of the message that I send.
This is easy to change.
- Click on the Tools menu
- Select Options
- Select Composition
- Select the General tab
- At the top change Forward messages: “As Attachment” to “Inline”
- Click OK
Your forwarded messages should now include the text of the forwarded message in the body of the email just below any message text that you add.
How do I upgrade Thunderbird?
If you selected the default settings during the installation, Thunderbird will automatically download updates and let you know when they are ready for installation. You will find the settings for this under Tools, Options, Advanced and then select the Update tab.
How do I set up mailing lists?
Check out our tutorial about setting up Thunderbird mailing lists. This is really simple to do, but like many things with open source software, the solution is not always intuitive.
How do I eliminate spam?
This is an area where Thunderbird excels. We did a separate post on that called Thunderbird spam and junk mail filters. We tried several different methods to eliminate spam and this was the only system that eliminated it almost completely and at zero cost. We were very impressed. 😀
Where does Thunderbird store my e-mail messages?
They are hidden, but you can find them using the tips we offer in Thunderbird file location. This is very useful information if you wish to move the location to a Windows folder that can be easily backed up.
How do I change my passwords?
Ah-h-h, grasshopper. Passwords used to access your e-mail accounts are easy to change if you follow the instructions we offer in Changing Thunderbird Passwords.
How to I add a signature to my messages?
That is also very easy to do if you just follow the steps in our creating an email signature tutorial.
How do I make Mozilla Thunderbird my default e-mail client?
When you set up Thunderbird as the default email client, it will automatically open whenever you click on an e-mail address on a web page that uses the HTML mailto: protocol. To configure Thunderbird as the default email client, simply Open the Tools menu, select Options and click on the General icon. Under system Defaults, check the box that says, “Always check to see if Thunderbird is the default email client on startup.” Click OK to save the setting. From now on, whenever the PC is booted it will check to see if Thunderbird is the default email client. If one of the Windows programs tries to change the setting to Outlook or if another program changes it to something else, a message will be displayed that will allow you to change it back.
How do I permanently delete e-mail messages in Thunderbird?
Most people are not aware of this, but when you delete an e-mail message with most e-mail clients, you do not actually delete the message. The message is simple flagged so that it does not appear in the e-mail list. Thunderbird never actually deletes a message unless you take some extra steps. First, select File, Empty Trash. Second, select File, Compact Folders. This deletes all of the flagged messages in the data files.
Can I use Thunderbird with my Yahoo e-mail account?
Yes and no. This issue keeps coming up. It looks like you can use Thunderbird with a Yahoo account if you subscribe to Yahoo Mail Plus. The standard freebie Yahoo account does not offer POP3 access. See the following articles. You will find all of the proper configuration information posted there.
Can I use Thunderbird to read and send my Yahoo! Mail?
Can I POP my mail into a different email client (like Thunderbird)?
Yahoo outgoing e-mail problems with Thunderbird.
How do I prevent Thunderbird from embedding attachments in incoming e-mail?
This was a feature that was turned on by default in older versions of Mozilla Thunderbird. I think the default is turned off in newer versions. It is something that is not only annoying, but also presents security issues.
Turning the embedding feature off is easy. Just select the View menu. Make sure that Display Attachments Inline is unchecked.
How do I prevent Thunderbird from embedding attachments in my outgoing e-mail?
Changing Thunderbird’s behavior with outgoing e-mail attachments is easy to do, but is buried in the Config Editor. Make sure that you are using a current version of Thunderbird. The location of the Config Editor has changed several times with different versions.
Select the Tools menu, then Options, select the Advanced button, then the General tab and click on the Config Editor button. Scroll down until you find mail.content_disposition_type. If the value is not set to 1, double-click on that line and an Enter Integer Value dialog box will pop up. Change the value to 1 and click OK. Shut down Thunderbird and restart it for the change to take effect.
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More advanced Thunderbird features are coming. Meanwhile, anyone with specific questions about Thunderbird can post them here. If we have the answer, we will add it to this post.
Hi there,
I currently use Thunderbird v. 2.0.0.0, on a Mac PowerBook G4, having formerly used Outlook. One little feature I miss about the latter was when you opened up an email, it would indicate if you had forwarded it, and if so, it would tell you the date and give you the option of seeing the forwarded mail you sent.
Is there any way to do this in Thunderbird?
Thanks….
Hi FMichael
That would be a nice feature. I don’t know of any indicator in Thunderbird other than the small arrow that displays in the left column of the e-mail list after you forward or reply to a message.
When sending an email with a jpg attachment the picture also appears in the text area. I would like to turn off this feature, how is it done please? (I’m using Thunderbird 2.0.0.14)
Hi Mike
I just aded the fix for your problem to the list of tips.
thanks – have applied the fix but the photo is still displayed in the body of the email as well as being jpg attachment. (vsn 2.0.0.14)
Hi Mike
Are others seeing the attached images in messages that you sent to them, or are you just seeing it in test messages that you send to yourself? These are two different issues. The tip just above the one I posted for you deals with incoming messages, including those that you send to yourself. Also, the recipient’s email client could be configured to embed attachments.
One more thing: double-check the Config Editor to make sure that you changed the correct item and the change did get saved.
I keep getting a message asking me if thunderbird is the default. I check the yes box but despite that it keeps coming up. Any ideas on how to get rid of this annoying message. Thanks….
Hi Steve
Thunderbird should not keep asking you once you you check the box. You might have a conflict with the Windows default e-mail client.
First, follow the tip listed above to set Thunderbird as the default within Thunderbird. Go to Tools > Options, select the General tab and uncheck the box next to “Always check to see of Thunderbird is the default mail client at startup”. Click the OK button. Shut down Thunderbird and start it up again to see if the message is gone.
If that doesn’t work, then check to see what is set up in Windows for the default e-mail client. Open the Control Panel, select Network and Internet Connections, then select Internet Options. Select the Programs tab and make sure that Mozilla Thunderbird is selected as the default e-mail system. This is where the setup uis located in XP. If you are running Vista it could be somewhere else.
You can also access the default Windows setup in Internet Explorer under Tools > Internet Options > Programs.
One feature I would like is that if I select a message in my inbox, I should be able to do a quick search (with the click of a button, keystroke, etc) to get all of the replies and forwards of that particular message (provided I keep them in my “sent” folder of course). Does anyone know how to do that, if there is an extension, or if it is even possible (i.e. Does thunderbird link emails in that way?).
Some times I see that I have replied and/or forwarded a message (by the status column) and want to very quickly see all the associated messages
Thanks
I think I must be really stupid…
I am trying to set up a new email account with Thunderbird but am having trouble figuring out what I should be choosing between POP3 and IMAP and what the server addresses are??
Please help me!!
Hi Amy
You need to get that information from your hosting company. Mosty likely, they will be using POP3 accounts.
I used to be able to just CTRL-V paste copied images into the body of Thunderbird emails, but now no matter what I do images can only be sent as attachments. I don’t want the images as attachments, I want them inline with the message body.
I’m using 2.0.0.14 and have no idea what might have changed. Any help/info you might provide would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!
Hi John
Check out the following Mozilla Knowledge Base page:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Images_in_messages_do_not_appear
This could be the problem: “For images embedded in messages: make sure that the setting for “View -> Message Body As” is set to either “Original HTML” or “Simple HTML”.”
If it is set to Text, your images will not appear in the body of the message.
Hi,
When I forward messages using Thunderbird, the Subject line always formats as:
[Fwd: subjectlinehere]
Is there a way to set Thunderbird to remove those bracket symbols?
Thanks
Hi Jess
That’s probably one of those issues that is an Internet standard to indicate forwarded message. It may be hard coded into Thunderbird. If anyone knows of a solutions, please post it.
Hi –
Am new to Thunderbird and Linux Eee-pc 701 netbook. Cannot view my Sent emails. Simple with Outlook using my Windows desktop PC where Sent mail displays via ‘Sent’ under the ‘File’ drop down list inc. ‘Drafts’ etc. on LH side of screen. Is there something similar for Thunderbird that I’m just not finding? Do I have to set up a Sent mail folder?
Speedy help would be greatly appreciated.
Rob. M
Hi Rob
If you click on the expand icon [+] next to any of your e-mail accounts in the left-hand All Folders column, you will see the link to view the sent messages.
Hello,
Is there any way to stop Thunderbird from writing binary form of attachments into the Sent file? I have an account that primarily sends out print-ready tickets (rather large PDFs) to customers, and it is getting so huge so quickly that it is starting to lose mail (which is terrible for my record keeping!) and compacting doesn’t seem to help. I don’t see any reason the Sent file should have anything more than the filename or maybe a pointer, why does it try to “write” the whole attachment along with the text of the message? And is there any way that I can stop it from doing this? I tried changing the mail.content_disposition_type to 1 – but that didn’t change this behavior. Thanks for ay help you can provide.
Unfortunately, Thunderbird embeds all attachments, unlike other e-mail clients that store them in separate folders. I also find this to be annoying.
I do not know of a way to change this behavior, but perhaps someone reading this does.
Compacting basically removes deleted files. It does not compress the files. As with many other e-mail clients, deleted files are not deleted until you compress the folders.
Hi,
I am trying to back up 15 old computers, all have used thunderbird. They do not have mozilla back up installed on them. Is there anyway to backup the emails on each machine without having to install mozilla back up fifteen times? I cant understand why there is not just a folder where all of the emails are stored. Any help is much appreicated.
Hi Michael
There is a Thunderbird folder that contains all the Thunderbird emails and settings and can easily be backed up. You can even move it to a My Documents folder or anywhere where it will be easier to back up. See our article about Changing the File Location for Thunderbird.
i am using thunderbird for emails, while forwarding the mails that are having tables, table cells are sent as individaual lines, how to fix the problem
Hi swamy
Make sure that your messages are being sent as HTML e-mail and not as plain text e-mail.
View > Message Body As > Original HTML
Hi,
Anybody know of a way to prevent Thunderbird client from opening when sending mail via MAPI?
We use MYOB Accounting to send invoices as email attachments. When Vista Mail is the default mail client, mail is sent silently – ie. Mail client does not load. When Thunderbird is the default mail client, the mail is sent no problem however thunderbird mail client loads.
many thanks to anyone who has any ideas. Been trawling config options and forums for a month!
Thx
Adam
I would like messages sent to me with attached images to show the images inline. Sometimes they are shown inline, but most of the time not. View->Display attachments inline is checked. View->Message body as->Original HTML is set. What else can I do? My version is 2.0.0.23. Thanks.
(see previous post) I forgot to mention that the images *are* shown inline, but *after* the main body of the message with the text. So I can see them but out of context. Thanks.
Most of the time people are complaining about images and documents that are shown inline when they do not want them inline. 😀
The real problem is all of the variations with e-mail formats, forwarded messages versus original messages, etc. Some of the messages may have embedded images, which are controlled by the sender. If the image is not embedded at the source, it will not be embedded when you receive it. “Inline” merely tries to force attached images or documents to display after the message.
The problem is likely related to the way the messages are being sent.
Hi,
I am having an issue with Thunderbird and JPEG’s. My aunt sends my grandmother lots of pictures. About 80% of them we have no problem opening. Unfortunately the other 20% (which are always the larger ones) will not open. When we log into my grandmothers account directly through GMAIL the photos open up and are displayed no problem. I know that when large JPEG’s are sent they are automatically compressed in the JPEG format. The issue is that GMAIL is able to identify and decompress the photos and Thunderbird is not. Do you have any suggestions? I have tried everything from using a different photo viewer to uninstalling and re-installing Thunderbird to no avail. Please let me know if you have a suggestion.
Hi Tom
There actually is no such thing as a decompression for JPEGs, unless it uses a separate method, such as with zip file compression. Once a JPEG is compressed using standard JPEG compression, it stays compressed forever.
As far as I know, Thunderbird does not compress attached images, but it does encode attachments as part of the message. In other words, when an e-mail attachment is sent, it is stored in Thunderbird as part of the e-mail. There is no separate file for the attachment. That may be where you are running into problems if there is something wrong with the JPEG format and Thunderbird cannot interpret it.
You might want to see what type of tool your aunt is using to send the images. They should be sent as attachments and not embedded, especially if they are large files. it sounds like they are attachments.
It looks like there is a 25 meg limit for GMail attachments.
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=8770
You will find the following on that page.
“With Gmail, you can send and receive messages up to 25 megabytes (MB) in size. Please note that you may not be able to send larger attachments to contacts who use other email services with smaller attachment limits.”
It could be that GMail is compressing the large files using a proprietary method that they can interpret, but Thunderbird cannot. I suspect that the problem is with GMail.
Your aunt’s ISP could also be part of the problem if they are doing something to limit attachment sizes. You probably have at least two different ISPs and GMail involved in this.
You might want to have your aunt try to send each large JPEG file attached to a separate e-mail message to see if that works. That might avoid any GMail filter that could be compressing the larger images if the total size of the attachments exceeds their limit.
Have you seen this problem with anything other than a GMail account? That could tell you if GMail is causing the problem.
Perhaps someone else has a solution for this. Feel free to join in if you have a solution.
Hi ~ I have a new computer with Windows 7. My old computer is XP. I use Thunderbird email and can receive emails on both computers. I need help getting the old Thunderbird emails on XP transferred to the Windows 7 computer. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Hi Vicky
Read the article about Changing the Thunderbird File Location with XP. The article explains where you will find the email files, how to move them to a new location and how to connect Thunderbird to the new location. It is always a good idea to keep all important files in a location that is easy to back up.
Thank you for the information, Doogie. Having your files in a location that is easy to backup is a good idea and I will implement this change on the new computer. Your instructions lead me to the correct folder to copy from one computer to the other.
FWIW, other than Windows 7 putting the Thunderbird data in a different hidden folder:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird etc.
everything else seemed to set up exactly like Windows XP.
Thanks for your help.
Hi Doogie,
Thanks very much for your insight it is greatly appreciated. I think you are correct in that Gmail is using some sort of proprietary compression that Thunderbird cannot intrepret since the larger attachments open up perfectly when using a browser and logging onto gmail.
You said “You might want to have your aunt try to send each large JPEG file attached to a separate e-mail message to see if that works.”
Do you mean have her send the large pictures in separate emails (which is what I think you are saying) when she notices they are above ? The photos she is having issues with are nowhere near 25MB in size.
There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason behind why some open and some don’t. For example in December an email was received that had a 117k photo and a 70k photo that would not open in Thunderbird (but opened just fine directly in gmail). 1 week later my aunt sent an email with three 100K plus photos and Thunderbird opened them up just fine.
This really has me scratching my head as in the end I am getting funny looks since I am the one who moved her over to gmail and Thunderbird from a very irritating roadrunner account.
Thanks,
Tom
Hi Tom
Yes, have her try to send any large image in a separate file. The issue with attachment size is a cumulative issue. In other words, it may be related to the combined size of the images, not the size of a single image. It is possible. that when a threshold level for total attachments is reached, the compression become more aggressive.
We have seen things like this with AOL in the past. Unless AOL user turn off the compression, the images viewed on web sites are further compressed as they pass through the AOL servers and many become distorted because of this. This can make some web sites look pretty crappy.
If your aunt is using AOL for her ISP, they could be compressing e-mails in a similar manner, although I do not know exactly what AOL is doing with their e-mail messages.
i was wondering if there was a simpler way to add addresses to the send to of an email. it seems that i need to open up the contacts and drag them in one by one. i’d like to just select them. ty.
Hi Terry
If you have everyone set up in your address book with a first name, last name and display name, you can just start to enter their name on the address line and Thunderbird will display a list that you can select from.
Another option is to set up mailing lists for groups of people that you contact regularly.
Hi
Having a big problem with mail forwarding in Mozilla thunderbirds (V 3.1.10).
When we started using this email software last year we had all emails forwarded to a hotmail account so that all emails could be accessed at home. This had been working fine until the beginning of the year. Now, instead of emails forwarding to the hotmail account an error message gets send back to the sender as follows: – host mx4.hotmail.com [65.55.37.120]: 550 SC-001 Unfortunately, messages from 69.56.174.114 weren’t sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block list. I have contacted our service provider but they haven’t been able to solve the problem. I have made sure that the forwarded messages are ‘inline’ and not ‘attachments’. In fact I can’t even delete the forwarding option as it doesn’t show in the message filter box. I have no idea what else to try. Can anyone help?
Thanks
Deborah
Hi Deborah
If I understand this correctly, your problem has nothing to do with Thunderbird. Thunderbird does not automatically forward e-mails. That is done through your online e-mail accounts. It sounds like you have multiple ISP e-mail accounts set up to forward to Hotmail. You might be using filters to redirect messages to another account in Thunderbird, but that is not the same as forwarding an e-mail. Automatic forwarding should be done through your e-mail account’s online interface.
The IP address that is on the block list also has nothing to do with Thunderbird. Thunderbird messages that you send or manually forward will use the IP address assigned by your ISP (69.56.174.114 = The Planet). It looks like your ISP’s IP address is on Hotmail’s block list. It sounds like they do not want to resolve the issue with a tainted IP address. This problem is not related to attachments. The Hotmail message that you are getting is accurate. The ISP’s IP address is the problem. If you can get them to assign a different IP address, the problem should go away.
Thanks for your input, I have managed to solve the problem for now by stopping forwarding via the online e-mail account.
If I set up forwarding to the same hotmail account in message filters on Mozilla Thunderbirds will I have the same problem or should it work ok?
Hi Deborah
If you are no longer forwarding messages to your online Hotmail account, but rather are using Thunderbird’s filters to redirect the messages to a single Thunderbird message box, it should work fine.
Change your ISP, is my advice, a good ISP would have identified and resolved this issue within 24 hours of it happening. A bad ISP will cause the problem in the first place by either not monitoring their hosting properly or allowing themselves to get hacked in some way, either way unless they’ve been spoofed (in which case they’d have resolved it quickly), they’ve allowed someone on their network to be a bit naughty. It might not be their fault but it doesn’t point to towering technical competence.
I am new to thunderbird. I found out that I hated windows live mail. I have a problem with my address book in thunderbird. I have imported the address book and all my contacts are now a little icon looking head. How can I get the addresses or contacts to be names instead of heads?
I am using TB ver 2.0.0.19 and have just recently started experiencing an issue with outgoing mail when there is a jpg in the body. We have a company logo (jpg) with our signature and when responding to an email I have to scroll down and delete the logo to send…if there is a pic in the body, same issue. As I said, it was working fine and it is the same version that I have run all along.
Any Help?
Hi Doug
I have never seen a problem with sending an e-mail that would not go through just because it has an embedded image. I suspect the problem might be due to an inability to locate the image file due to a problem with the way that the image is inserted. If you used a local path to the image on your PC or network, TB may not be able to embed it properly.
You might want to think about updating Thunderbird. The current version is 6.0.2. The older versions had a lot of bugs that have been fixed.
It is difficult to tel what has changed. Perhaps the security has changed on your network and it is not allowing TB to access the image.
If anyone else has a fix for this, please jump in.