Team Thunderbird Answers Your Most Frequently Asked Questions

Non riesco ad inviare email ad indirizzi *.gmail.com. Come posso fare ?

All looks like very exciting stuff to me. I can’t wait. Thanks to the team for all the effort.

When communicating with vendors and HOA Board members, using different text colors to highlight important points is extremely helpful. However, changing the color of text is extremely cumbersome. Why can’t I have a dropdown to select the color I want to use (like text size, or font)? Right now, it takes 5 clicks to change a text color and then 5 more to return to black text.

I really appreciate Firebird, it is so much better than AOL’s UI.

when will you have highlighting as a feature. I really miss it.

periodically TB refuses to save my email in the sent folder. Changing email addresses doesn’t fix it, so it must be TB itself.
GOT any fixes for that??

REALLY glad to hear the arrival of “full sender name column with the raw email address of the sender” is imminent! I was one of the people who had asked for that feature.

I appreciate the wonderful new plans for Thunderbird but I wish that Thunderbird would get back to the basics and make it easier for users to READ E-Mail on their COMPUTER Screens. Some time in 2023 Thunderbird stopped supporting the use of Command+ on macOS to magnify the display of the content of the bodies of e-mail messages. It provided some word salad explanation of why this was done. OLD THUNDERBIRD USERS may find it very useful or even essential to magnify the the display of bodies. Control+ is the normal way for this to be done.

As of now a user can select the View Pull-Down Menu, then, without needing to select anything from the menu, he can click in the body of the displayed message and use Command+ once or more than once to magnify the display of the body. This selection of the View Pull Down Menu must be done EACH TIME THAT A MESSAGE IS OPENED. This is extremely awkward. It is an irritating waste of time.

Note that this silliness does *NOT* occur with FIREFOX. When one views a web page via Firefox one can use Command+ and Command- at anytime to adjust magnification. There is no need to select the View Pull Down Menu first.

Reading E-Mail is one of the most important and ubiquitous reasons for one to use Thunderbird. Please correct this problem with the User Interface.

merci de bien vouloir noter mon changement d’adresse.
Fr. T.

Merci de bien vouloir noter mon changement d’adresse.
Fr.T.

Pourquoi le version de Thunderbird que je possède refuse-t-elle de télécharger ma boite gmail ?

I have been using the Address Book Synchronizer add-on for Thunderbird for many years. Within the past year this add-on (and/or Thunderbird itself) has developed an annoying behavior. The upload (to a local file) continues to be “fast and snappy”. However, the download process (from a local file to the TB address book) is painfully SLOW. Instead of a quick file copy process (as in years past) I face what appears to be an address by address SQL insertion process which is painfully slow, causes the CPU to run at “full load”, and locks up TB for several minutes (it actually causes a “time out” pop-up window with a slower processor). I know you’re going to blame the “add-on” author; if that’s the case, please at least inform the author how he can speed up the “download” process.

Oh dear… I couldn’t understand the questions In your FAQ above using terminology I’d never heard of. Then, of course, realised it was for mobiles, so heaved a sigh of relief as I only use Thunderbird on my computer. Though then I got worried about what was going to happen to the desk top version.

I’m still worried about that.

When you make changes to layout or format, especially when it’s optional, can you leave our preferred settings alone. I hated the threaded emails and it took me ages to work out how to revert.

Can you explain what ESR is and how it affects the Calendar and Address Book. Are we likely to lose these? I just don’t understand how we can send emails without an Address Book? And would be lost without the Calendar.

If I can’t use Tb properly, how can I preserve all my saved emails so I can still have access to them.

What’s the point of Thunderbird in a browser? I just use the email client’s web version when I need to access from another device. I don’t need to download email locally, which is what I use Thunderbird for.

How do you reset your password if you don’t have it anymore or forgot it?

I may be old but if I remember right I used to be able to open Thunderbird and then right click and delete emails that I didn’t want to read without the next email opening. This was very convenient, especially when there were several emails in a row that I wanted to delete and that I did not care to view.
Are there any plans on making this feature work again, or is there a setting that I am missing?

Hello;
Changes are always innovative, and I wonder if I could suggest something. My need is to have a simple space included for each incoming email into which I could make a personal note or reference comment about the received email. It’s not transmitted, just a reference. And not the “Tags” option – this needs a “comment box” concept. And not massive either. Just comments.
Many thanks for listening.
Regards

Hi Jason, are we still expecting to have a message preview line in the 3 vertical panel mode like in Apple Mail and Outlook? Almost every mobile client displays a single line of the message. If so is there any indication ehen that might be?

Thanks!

When you say, “We want to support every aspect of Exchange,” does that include this feature: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/pull-in-all-exchange-folders-a-user-has-access-to-when-logging/idi-p/34018

I was waiting for the announcement post to send this question April Community-Office Hours, but hey, since you’re here 😛

1) I don’t understand why my desktop version does not allow the Remember Me button to work.
2) I want back my ability to highlight a bunch of emails for deletion in my email server (not in Thunderbird itself on my desktop). Right now it is highlight all of them at once or individually one-by-one (so impractible with up to 200+ emails daily).
Other than these, my TB is fine.

p.s. my name/address/etc does not auto-load here. Why not?

Will Android have smart “filters” that enable move/copy among local and remote IMAP folders?

I would welcome filters that would Le me forward a message from John to others based on message content and other details.

A better forward would provide message “re-write” and “re-format” including extracting attachments.

Thanks Jason,
I’d used the hamburger menu’s Font Size controls to increase the font size of everything in Thunderbird but that is not ideal. It increases the size of the header, thus reducing the screen area available for the body. It also increases the size of the font in the window which lists messages, thus crowding out information in various columns.
There was a specific change made to Thunderbird in 2023 which disabled CMD +/- on macOS. The reason stated by Thunderbird was something to effect that CMD +/- was used by Apple for controlling display size and Mozilla did not want to step onto Apple’s toes.
I’ve used MacBook Pros since the first Unibody models were introduced in Early 2009. I’d purchased three 17″ MBPs ( one was stolen and one was for a gift to a friend ) before needing to move to the mid-2015 MBP 15″ which I am still using. I’ve read hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages using Thunderbird since about 2009 or 2010. I can assure you that when I open an e-mail message using Thunderbird I can no longer use CMD +/- to control the size of fonts used in the display of bodies until I at least click on the control for the View Pull Down Menu. I was able to use CMD+/- routinely, without clicking on View, until Thunderbird made a change in 2023. This problem has been reported by others. I learned about just needing to click on the View Control to enable CMG +/- from someone on that thread.
My configuration is:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) // 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 // 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
macOS Monterey ver. 12.7.4 (21H1123)
Thunderbird 115.9.0 (64-bit) — I see that a new version came out sometime today.
— Tom

My Microsoft smart keyboard has several extra function keys that lets users assign our own instructions to. For example, when I press MS key 5, Quicken for Windows launches.

But when Thunderbird is live on my PC — and only Thunderbird — the process described above is corrupted, and pressing the same key opens Adobe Acrobat. A second press will then open Quicken.

Is there a fix for this? I’ve been asking this question for several years and never got a good answer, just useless guesses.

All power to your elbows, and fingertips, but PLEASE add a simple button to disable threads in an installation for those of us who can’t stand threading.

Many years ago… I used TB and his address book.
Mind you, I still use it today. But I use my Android smartphone a lot more and therefore my most updated contacts are there (gmail account). I therefore need TB to “implement” the updates (new names, cancellations, email address changes) made on the smartphone. Just as the calendar should be synchronized (two-way).
I have an example of a “bridge” between the two worlds on my PC with the “Gnome Accounts” utility which also allows me to mount Drive as a local drive (but this is something that TB doesn’t need).
I’m looking forward to the Android version!
Thank you very much for your attention and congratulations to everyone.

Ich finde nirgends eine einfache Instruktion wie ich das Thunderbird Mailsystem von einem Windows 17 auf ein Windows 11 zügle. Die separaten Daten von 4GB habe ich schon extern gesichert. Das exakte Installationsvorgehen auf dem neuen Windows 11 ist mir unklar.

Any chance of nested Tasks? This would be a great addition.

Dear hereby a question.
When will there be a Thunderbird for IOS and iPad?

How about jmap support?

I am VERY disappointed that you have NOT addressed any of the complaints about the new threading feature. I already have a very good way to keep my messages organized, and your threading feature totally screws it up. I would very much appreciate a means to TURN OFF the threading feature.

All appears in order. However the only issue I have with Thunderbird, probably a minor issue, is that the layout is not the same as outlook 2007. I used 2007 while working at a university in Dundee, Scotland. The layout, colour and ease of use with outlook 2097 still beats anything else I have seen. To me it was oerfect and I can’t understand why microsoft changed the system. Especially the layout and colour.

When are you going to fix all of the functionality that made Thunderbird the best RSS client that was broken after 102.x went EOL? 115 was such a strong regression in that area. Column and folder views regressed. Previewing messages regressed. Keyboard shortcuts (particularly Enter to toggle view format) regressed. Did anyone test this? 115 was so unusable that it was necessary to revert to 102 using the Flatpak and restoring a data backup.

And filing a bug report is unapproachable. Just migrate to GitHub or GitLab or Codeberg already.

Is anyone looking into the problem that 115 on Sonoma takes nearly a minute to start up before anything appears in the application window? This happens for me on two machines, one Intel one Apple Silicon. It never used to happen, and the problem appeared when I changed to 115 from 102. It does not happen for 115 running in Big Sur on an older Intel machine, so I think it is an interaction between the OS and 115.

No complaints from me, just praise ! Using fund the bird since version 3.1 from memory it has been the daily work horse and go to program that keeps my business alive. It is never failed, it is never spat the dummy, it occasionally does some with things but normally a restart will fix that. It is a fantastic program that our business relies on daily. Keep up the good work guys it is appreciated by so many!

A T’bird user for decades, I want to archive all my mail and migrate it at some point to Word. This tends to be easier/-est to do with Outlook, which I loathe, but which makes copying whole folders fairly easy (for obvious reasons). Any Ideas other than converters available from other vendors?

Will I ever be able to use Thunderbird with Yahoo mail?

Having Thunderbird and its features on Android would be outstanding. I use Thunderbird 90% on Desktop, I love the tagging feature and option to not load the email graphics. Syncing with the desktop version for tagging would be be great.
I tried the K-9 Mail on Android and stopped, didn’t want to learn it.
Would love to not rely on Google

When I had Cox Email, I had no problem using Thunderbird, and loved it. Now Cox has betrayed it’s email customers and gotten out of the email business. They made a deal with Yahoo to take Cox customers and the deal included a requirement that we could keep our @cox.net email address. I can receive incoming Thunderbird mail but cannot send mail. Trying to deal with Yahoo about Thunderbird is a dead end, so I’ll just have to live without Thunderbird. I use a Windows 10 computer for my e-mail.

Ola, Jason, It’s likely there — I just can’t find it in TB — but I really, really need an easy quick “HARD STRING” search! It’s not about words or roots or similarities — just characters — only those letters and numerals and characters ONLY between the quotation marks and ONLY that exact number of characters in ONLY that exact order — and nothing more — I want to find that “hard string” of characters in one email among a 1000 — and see ONLY that one return.
Otherwise, TB’s automatic search of similarities and roots and related words ability is impressive and useful and convenient — but not when I just really, really need to find that one “hard string” of characters in a 1000 emails.
Muito Obrigado,
Dru

When will desktop Linux Thunderbird support Gnome Mobile Shell?

Many Linux users appreciate using the exact same desktop Thunderbird on their Linux phone, but right now it doesn’t scale correctly. Gnome Mobile Shell support will do it. I’ve used K9 (back when I used Android) and Linux Thunderbird with GMS support will be THE BEST.

I am a paying Thunderbird supporter, and I appreciate your hard work.

I have trouble with JUNK. It works randomly. Some messages are sometimes put in the JUNK file and sometimes in the message file whether or not they are marked JUNK. There is a JUNK button if a message is open but no NOT JUNK button anyplace.

Thanks for the re-assurance Jason.

I’ll be 80 in June and it’s really difficult sometimes to keep in tough with new stuff and “jargon”.

Interested in what “improvements” are to be made to the Address Book as, very often whenever I write to someone, or receive a reply, a new entry is made in the Address Book, even though it’s exactly the same address. This doesn’t happen every time, but I keep having to spend time cleaning up the addresses.

A quick glance through just now and I’ve found another 3. been added. One of which, the Name is the same, though one is all small case, the other initial capital, the email address is exactly the same. Perhaps the case sensitivity could be looked at?

When I delete an email where can I find it to recover it?

Any chance Thunderbird will ever support running in the background on Linux ? I need to be notified about incoming emails without having to open it myself.

Why is the menu bar no longer on top in 11? This is standard Windows UI. At least give us the option of puttinf it on top.

(Please don’t delete my comment, you’ve answered others and I don’t see anything wrong with it.)

Any chance Thunderbird will support running in the background on Linux ? I need to be notified of incoming emails without having to open it first.

This Q&A is awesome. Exactly the kind of thing I want. Great job!

Will Thunderbird for Android have RSS compatibility? I’d very much appreciate if the android app would synchronize RSS feeds with desktop.

Hey Jason,

Are you guys publishing a financial report this year, like last year? Interested to see how the project is chugging along/how sustainable it is.

Still hoping for help to learn how to do a “hard string” search —
— a basic, simple “compare” operation —
to compare for only and exactly the letters, numerals, “characters” in a search string —
— searching all emails — and searching only for that exact number of letters, numerals, “characters” between two delimiters — in that exact order.
The search available with “Ctrl-K” is fabulous and finds “roots” o a search string — and finds “related to” the search string — but gives me 500 “hits” to sort through and parse out — when in reality there exists ONLY one email — among 1000 that has within it — the exact “hard string” I am searching for — and I would like see only one hit from the search.
Thanks,
Dru

Hello,

Any ETA from when the Thunderbird Sync functionality will be released?

Thanks in advance.