The Thunderbird add-on Account Colors changes this. The extensions allows to assign font and background colors to accounts or identities to visually distinguish them from other accounts set up in the email client.

The extension makes no modifications to the email client on its own. It is up to you to customize the program in the add-on options. Just click on Tools > Add-Ons and there on the options button next to the Account Colors entry.

Settings are displayed in five tabs in the interface that allow you to make modifications to the folder, thread and message pane, as well as the compose window.

Font styles and font sizes can be changed for different identifiers that are displayed in the email client. This includes account names in the folder pane, and subject names in message lists or message headers.

Font and background colors are taken from the account and identity colors tab. All colors are set to black and white by default, which you need to change during setup if you want to distinguish accounts from each other.

Other options include bolding fonts, showing tree lines in the folder pane, row stripes in the thread pane or increasing the row spacing in the folder or thread pane.

The main purpose of the add-on is to improve the visibility of email accounts. Assigning colors to email accounts makes it a lot easier to identify those accounts on first glance.

Thunderbird users can download the Account Colors extension from the official Mozilla Thunderbird add-ons repository. The extension has been tested under the latest stable version of Thunderbird (that is Thunderbird 9.0.1).

Thunderbird 8 has just been released. Existing Thunderbird users may have already noticed the update when they have stared the desktop email client today. Users who have not can check for new updates by going to Help > About Thunderbird in the main menubar of the email client. This triggers an automatic check for new updates in the program itself.

So what’s new in Thunderbird 8? The beta release notes, which have been published last month list the following improvements:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
• Improved accessibility of the attachment lists
• Several user interface fixes and improvements
• and numerous other platform fixes

The big new feature is the blocking of automatic installations via third party software programs. This is actually the same feature that made it into Firefox 8 released a few days ago. In addition, Thunderbird users now get a one-time dialog when the update in which they can manage installed add-ons. The email client will suggest add-ons that may not be compatible giving the user the choice to disable them to improve stability of the email client.

The official download site is still listing Thunderbird 7.01 as the latest stable version. It may take some hours or maybe even a day until the new Thunderbird 8 version is published on the official website. Download portals such as Softpedia or MajorGeeks are already hosting the new version, so grab it from there if you are in a hurry.

Update: The calendar add-on Lightning for Thunderbird has been released in version 1.0 as well today.

With the release of Firefox 7 came also the release of Thunderbird 7. The email program made a big jump from version 3 all the way to version 7, even skipping a version to sync with the Firefox browser.

Existing Thunderbird users should get update notifications right in the email client. They can then update from within without having to download the client from the official website. Users who have not received the notification of the update yet can check for it manually by going to Help > About Thunderbird.

The release notes list several changes and feature enhancements.

• Thunderbird is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 7 engine
• Several user interface fixes and improvements
• Several fixes to attachment handling
• Ability to print a summary of selected email messages
• Platform improvements to Address Book
• Fixed several security issues
• Numerous platform fixes that improve speed, performance and stability

Nothing major as you can, mostly under the hood improvements or changes that the majority of users might not even recognize.

The Welcome to Thunderbird page after updating or installing the new version lists additional features. I’m not sure if they all made their way into this version or if they have been available before. Thunderbird 7 starts up faster and is more responsive according to that feature listing. A new troubleshooting information page is listed there as well. It looks exactly like the page of the Firefox web browser.

New users can download the latest Thunderbird version from the official Mozilla Thunderbird project homepage. It is available there for all supported operating systems and languages.

Are you using Thunderbird? Let me know what you think of the latest update.

There are even extensions that synchronize data with social networking sites. We have reviewed Thunderbird Contacts in the past which can be used for that purpose.

Most users open the Thunderbird address book from within the email client. That’s great as long as the program is already open. But what if you want to open the address book when Thunderbird is not running on the system?

You could of course start Thunderbird on the computer before opening the address book via Tools > Address Book or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-B.

Or, you could create a new shortcut on your computer that opens the Thunderbird address book directly and without starting the email client itself.

Navigate to the Mozilla Thunderbird folder on your computer. The default installation folder under Windows is C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\

Right-click the thunderbird.exe file and select Create Shortcut. Save it in that directory or alternatively on the desktop if restrictions prevent the saving in the same directory.

Right-click the shortcut afterwards and select Properties from the context menu. Locate the Target path in the Shortcut tab and add -addressbook at the end of it (there is a blank between the closing ” and the -addressbook).

Select Apply and OK afterwards. Double-click the shortcut. If everything went right, you should now see the address book open up immediately. If something went wrong, retrace the steps to correct the error.

So what is new in Thunderbird 6.0? The release notes, which are up already on the official website, list the following items that have been updated, changed or added to the email client.

• Thunderbird is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 6 engine
• Several theme improvements for Windows 7
• Support for Windows 7 Jump lists
• Several fixes when importing email from Microsoft Outlook
• Default mail client check now works with newer Linux distributions
• Various other user interface fixes and improvements
• Numerous platform fixes that improve speed, performance, stability and security

The feature list, as you can see, is rather small, and offers barely any new features for users of the email program. Windows 7 users benefit from jumplist support and theme improvements. Jumplists show up when a Windows user right-clicks on the icon in the taskbar. For now, Thunderbird users get links to their address book, writing a new message and the mailbox.

The update check from within the email client is already picking up the new version. This makes it possible to perform an in-program update to install the latest version of Thunderbird.

Users can do that with a click on Help > About Thunderbird.

The email client is also available for download at the official website for all supported operating systems and languages. Thunderbird users who want to take a closer look at the release notes of this particular release can do so here.

There they find troubleshooting tips and known issues, which are always worth checking out before upgrading or install a new version of the software.

For now, downloads are only available on the official Mozilla ftp server and on some of the mirror servers. It is likely that the big software download repositories will have the release for download before the official announcement.

The release notes have not been updated yet. The beta release notes however hint at the changes and additional features that have made their way into Thunderbird 5.

With the streamlining of the release cycle with the Firefox browser come additional similarities. Thunderbird now sports the very same add-on manager that Mozilla added to the Firefox browser earlier.

The email account creation wizard has been revised to improve the setup of new email accounts in the program. See the list below for a full list of changes in Thunderbird 5.

• New Addons Manager and extension management API (user interface will be changed before final release)
• Tabs can now be reordered and dragged to different windows
• Revised account creation wizard, offering improved set-up
• Attachment sizes now displayed along with attachments
  New troubleshooting information page to aid supporting and diagnosing problems in Thunderbird
• Plugins can now be loaded in RSS feeds by default
• Various other user interface fixes and improvements
• Support for Mac 32/64 bit Universal builds (Thunderbird Beta will no longer support PowerPC on Mac)

The big version jump from Thunderbird 3.1 to 5 will definitely render some addons incompatible. The easiest way to force compatibility is to install the Addon Compatibility Reporter extensions.

Have you downloaded and installed Thunderbird 5 yet? If so, what’s your opinion so far? (via)

Bugzilla lists a total of 71 bugs that have been fixed in Mozilla Thunderbird 3.1.10, of which two have received the highest possible rating blocker. Additionally, 16 of the issues listed have received a severity rating of critical, and another four one of major.

Several of the fixes appear to be language related, for instance crash fixes when spell checking with French or Hungarian dictionaries, or update crashes when localized strings excess certain parameters.

Just check Bugzilla for the full list of fixes in this version of Thunderbird. The release, unlike that of Firefox 4.0.1 is already available for download at the official Mozilla Messaging website.

You can for instance download it from the official release notes page. It is likely that the email client will pick up the new release soon as well and display notifications in the application, so that in-application updates will become possible as well.

Last time I checked my Thunderbird plugin list had 12 different plugins enable which was quite the shock, considering that I did not need a single one of them.

I made the decision to disable all plugins, mainly because I did not need a single one. But there are other reasons why it may make sense to disable them.

Plugins are loaded with the email client which means that they occupy memory even if they are not needed. Disabling them will free up some memory and maybe even improve performance which is always a good thing.

Then there is security which can be a reason as well. Plugins sometimes have security vulnerabilities which means that not only the web browser but also the email client may be vulnerable to exploits.

Most users should disable all plugins in Thunderbird. There may be some that use the client to display feeds or web pages. Those users may want to keep some plugins enabled, Flash for instance to view Flash contents. The majority of plugins installed and enabled however are not likely needed at all.

To disable or enable plugins users need to click on Tools > Add-Ons in the Thunderbird menu and switch to the plugins sidebar item there. Plugins that are disabled show that in brackets behind the name. The button disable disables the plugin and enable will enable it again if the need arises.

Spamfighter promises a solution for both of these problems. The software, which is available as a free and professional version, fights spam on a system wide level. The software supports Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird. Computer users with one or multiple of those clients configured on their system can make use of the antispam software.

Spamfighter Review

New users need to create a spamfighter account right in the application after installation. All they need to supply is an email address and password.

The application always starts in the Overview window which displays information and statistics. Among them the number of processed emails, the emails that have been blocked by Spamfighter or by the user, the time saved and the spam ratio. Community statistics are displayed as well, they currently read 45 billion processed emails of which more than 37 billion were spam, that’s a ratio of 85%.

Spamfighter taps right into all compatible email clients that are configured on the system. We could not get the program to work with the latest Mozilla Thunderbird 3.3 alpha, but that’s understandable since it is not officially supported. Spamfighter did install correctly into Outlook 2010 which was installed as part of Microsoft Office 2010. It has to be noted that Spamfighter can not process IMAP accounts.

The controls in the email client can be used to block or unblock emails among other things. Spamfighter will automatically create a new spamfighter folder in the email client where all emails that have been identified as spam are stored in. It is possible to unlock emails from there with the unblock button, or move regular emails into the spam folder with the block button. Emails in the spam folder can be accessed normally. All spam that is manually blocked is reported to the Spamfighter community so that all community members benefit from spam reports by members.

Additional controls are accessible under the more button.

Here it is possible to blacklist or whitelist domains or email addresses. Whitelisting means that emails will never be identified as spam, blacklisting the opposite of that.

The spam folder can be changed in the main program. Here it is furthermore possible to select if spam mails should be flagged as read or unread when moved, and whether Spamfighter should rescan the folder on startup which will rescan all unread emails that are stored in selected folders of the email client.

Filters can be edited in the main program as well. Here it is possible to add entries to blacklists and whitelists, or import lists from comma separated data files or compatible email clients.

Another interesting option is language recognition. Here it is possible to reject emails based on their language. Say you are from the United States and only receive emails in English. You could then select to only receive email messages in English which would automatically flag emails in different languages as spam. The other option available is to block emails from select languages only. It pretty much works the same way, the difference is that you will receive emails in all languages but the ones that you have selected to reject.

Spamfigther Verdict

Spamfighter is an excellent program for computer users who run at least one of the supported desktop email clients. Its core features are the cloud based approach to identifying new spam messages and the filtering system, especially the language filter.

The program is easy to setup and use as it integrates automatically with supported email clients. Experienced computer users will find the whitelisting and blacklisting of email addresses and domains useful, inexperienced users that it works very well right of the box.

Spamfighter Giveaway

We have ten licenses to give away. Please let us know about your current antispam setup for a chance to win a license.

This also means that there is no official release log yet, only the beta release notes are available and they list several fixes to improve stability and security of the email client, as well as several fixes to the program’s user interface.

The security fixes alone should be reason enough for Thunderbird users to update the email client as soon as the new version gets released by the development team.

A quick look at Bugzilla lists a total of 84 different bugs that have been fixed in Thunderbird 3.1.7 including a total of 26 different critical issues and one blocker issue. Most issues listed are related to crashes in the email client.

Thunderbird users who do not want to wait until the new release has been officially announced can download the new version from the Mozilla ftp server, one of the worldwide mirror servers, or sites like Softpedia which usually carry only the English language version.

Conversations is a new add-on for the Mozilla Thunderbird 3.3 email client that came out of Mozilla Labs. Conversations basically collects all emails of a conversation in Thunderbird and displays them on a single page in the browser, so that it becomes possible to read all messages without having to switch to another email or frantically trying to find the one message that you cannot find somehow.

Probably the best feature of the add-on is the global reach of it. It does not only find emails belonging to the same conversation in the active folder, no, it finds them globally so that users can be sure that every message gets included in the view.

Unread messages are automatically expanded while read messages show up collapsed, just like in Gmail. The extension works nicely with the Contacts extension which adds contact tooltips to the application. This includes their avatars and social networking profiles.

Another useful feature is the quick reply option that allows a user to quickly reply to messages by filling out the quick reply form displayed below messages.

Take a look at the video below for a quick introduction of Conversations.

Users who want to try Conversations need to download and install the first alpha version of Mozilla Thunderbird 3.3. Currently known issues are displayed on the Mozilla Labs page of the add-on, and users should take a look at the list before they install the alpha of Thunderbird 3.3 or the add-on.

On a related note: Thunderbird 3.3 looks really nice, especially the quality of the font and display seems to have been improved quite a bit. (via)

If you look at the example on the screenshot above you see that it is not possible to identify the file extension or full name of the email attachment. Sure, you can hover the file to see the full name of the attachment, but imagine having to do that not for one but for multiple files, every day.

The first thing that I did to find out if there was a setting for this was to look in the email client’s options, but the results were frustrating. No option, not even in the config editor. Second best bet was an extension, and again the search was fruitless.

The last option was to make changes to the userchrome.css file to manipulate the display in the email program. And this works. Here is what you need to do.

Locate your Thunderbird profile directory on your computer system. You can check Mozillazine for detailed information on how to locate the Thunderbird profile folder. In short:

• Windows XP / 2000: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\
• Windows Vista / 7: C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\\
• Linux: ~/.thunderbird// or ~/.mozilla-thunderbird
• Mac OS: ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles// or ~/Library/Application Support/Thunderbird/Profiles//

Now that you know where the profile folder is located you need to open it in a system file browser. Locate or create the chrome folder in the root Thunderbird profile folder and locate or create the file userchrome.css in there. The easiest way to create the userchrome.css file is to create a simple text document and rename it. Ensure that the file extension is .css and not .txt.

Open the file afterwards and add the following line to it:

#attachmentBucket, .attachmentBox {min-width: 25em;}

The important parameter is 25em at the end. This defines the width of the attachment area for each attachment in Thunderbird. Depending on the attachment names you get you may want to increase or decrease the value to make the box wider or smaller.

You need to restart Thunderbird before the changes become visible. As you can see in the example from my system, the email client now displays the attachment’s name in full.

The update is already available for download. Users who already work with a version of Thunderbird can check for new updates by clicking on Help > Check for Updates in the email client’s interface. The new version is also available for download at the official Mozilla Messaging site, good for users who cannot update the client directly.

How is Thunderbird affected by the vulnerability anyway? If you remember, the email client has browser-like capabilities, and that’s where it becomes vulnerable. The user needs to open a website in Thunderbird that exploits the vulnerability. If the email client has not been upgraded the system could be compromised, and an attacker could get remote access to the local system.

Thunderbird users who do not use the browser-like features are safe, but should update anyway to eliminate the possibility of a successful attack.

An update for the desktop email client Thunderbird was just released, raising the version of the email software to 3.1.4.

The version is considered a stability update, and therefor a recommended update for all Thunderbird users of the 3.x branch.

Thunderbird users who already run a version of Thunderbird 3.1 should get update notifications in the next hours. Those who do not want to wait can either check for updates manually by clicking on Help > Check for Updates, or visiting the official Mozilla Messaging site which offers downloads for all supported operating systems and languages.

thunderbird update 3.1.4

The release notes mention several stability updates and fixes to the user interface. A closer look at the bugs listed at the bug tracking service Bugzilla shows four fixes, including a fix for the bug that was earlier this day fixed in the Firefox web browser.

Several crash related bugs where fixed, especially one when new mail arrived and the user clicked either on the system tray icon, or the new mail notification information.

In other news, the Thunderbird 3.0x branch has also been updated to version 3.0.8.

The release has not been officially announced yet, which means that the release notes are not available as well at this point in time. The beta release notes however mention several stability and security fixes in Thunderbird 3.1.3.

thunderbird 313

This indicates a mandatory for every user of the Thunderbird 3.1 branch. Bugzilla lists 83 bugs that have been fixed in the beta version of the email client, of which 13 have been rated as critical.

On top of the security and stability fixes, several fixes to the user interface have been made. Don’t expect any noticeable changes though, the release’s aim was to fix bugs, not to add or change features in the email client.

Thunderbird users can download the release once it has been officially announced by the development team. The update checker in the client will pick up the new version at about the same time.

Users who do not want to wait that long can download the English version of the email software from Softpedia.

The new version is currently only available on the official Mozilla release ftp server, with a slim chance of a last minute bug preventing the public release.

The new version of Thunderbird 3.1.1 is as usualyl available in dozens of localized versions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux.

thunderbird 311

The release notes list stability and security fixes, as well as several fixes to the user interface. No further details are offered on that page.

Bugzilla lists a total of 93 bugs that have been fixed in Thunderbird 3.1.1, among them 12 critically rated bugs and nine moderate ones.

It is likely that the official release notification is posted later today, Thunderbird 3.1 users will then receive automatic update notifications, but only if that feature is enabled in their email client.

Users who can’t or do not want to wait that long can download the latest version of Thunderbird from the Mozilla ftp server.

These filters can be pinned so that they become available in all folders. It can happen that Thunderbird users do not find the emails they are looking for in the active filtered folder. Their options at this point are to either pin the filters and click through the other mail folders or perform a global search in hope of finding the right emails.

Unified Search is a project that tries to combine the functionality of Quick Filters with global searches. The extension in its current state makes it easier to launch a global search from the Quick Filter bar.

The search phrase entered in the Quick Filter bar can be used to initiate a global search in the email client, this is done by pressing Ctrl-Enter in the Quick Filter bar by default.

A new tab listing the global search results is spawned automatically after pressing the keyboard shortcut. That’s handy for users who work with Quick Filter most of the time to find emails and switch to global search if they cannot find the emails this way.

Options are provided to change the shortcut to either Alt-Enter or simply Enter.

unified search

Unified Search is available for all Thunderbird 3 versions, it can be downloaded from the Mozilla Thunderbird website.

Thunderbird 3.1 introduces several new features to the desktop email client, among them the new quick filter toolbar to filter messages in a folder temporarily or permanently, the saved files manager which displays the saved attachments of the current Thunderbird session and the migration assistant which improves the import of email accounts to Thunderbird.

Bugzilla lists five bugs that have been fixed in the second release candidate, among them one critical bug that affected the Mac version of the email client. A major bug in the migration assistant has been fixed as well which did not honor advanced IMAP synchronization settings.

Early adopters, tech enthusiasts and developers can download Thunderbird 3.1 RC2 from the official Mozilla Messaging website. The client is offered for all supported operating systems and languages.

Users who are already working with a previous Thunderbird 3.1 release can update the email software from within by going to Help > Check for Updates.

The final Thunderbird 3.1 version might be released as soon as next week if things go as planned.

Thunderbird 3.1 will replace the Thunderbird 3.0 branch once it is released introducing several new features in the email client including better message filtering, a saved file assistant and improved memory handling and stability.

The fixed bugs list of Thunderbird 3.1 RC 1 lists 54 issues that have been resolved in this new release including one blocker, eleven critical and four major ones.

Most critical issues that have been fixed were crash related but there are also minor fixes for better IMAP handling, interface and quick filter bar.

The email client release is considered stable by the developers but it still aims largely at developers and testers and not general users who are asked to wait until the final version of Thunderbird 3.1 is released before they migrate to the new client.

More information about the release are available at the blog post announcement, release notes and bugzilla.

Thunderbird 3.1 RC 1 is available for download for all supported operating systems and languages at the Mozilla website.

The Quick Filter toolbar was previously available as an extension for Thunderbird 3.1 beta and has now been integrated into the email program. You can read our previous email filtering review which fills you in on the details of the new feature.

Quick Filter basically can be used to quickly filter emails in a specific folder. Available options include a text search and filters to only show messages with attachments, from contacts in the address book and starred, unread or tagged messages.

A total of 136 bugs have been fixed in the second beta of Thunderbird 3.1 including two rated as blocker, six as critical and 15 as major.

Thundebird can be updated to 3.1 beta 2 if a previous beta version is already installed on the computer system. A click on Help > Check for Updates will check for an update and display the update option to download and install the new version of Thunderbird.

Thunderbird 3.1 Beta 2 is also available as a standalone download from Mozilla Messaging. It is advised to check the release notes first to verify that a system is compatible with the email client.

Windows versions prior to Windows 2000 are for instance no longer supported.