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5 Useful Thunderbird 3 Add-Ons That You Might Not Have Heard About Yet

Martin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:19:22 +0000

I have been using the desktop email client Mozilla Thunderbird for many years and have witnessed its rise to become one of the most powerful email software programs. I switched to version 3 since the first beta hit the download servers and have not looked back since. Version 3 of Thunderbird adds many interesting new features to the email client. It does however get rid of some of the old ones that at least some users will miss. It is also a fact that the email client is still only available as a beta version which should not be used without caution (meaning regular backups and extensive testing).

The following five add-ons have recently been added to the Mozilla Thunderbird extensions repository at the Mozilla website. Some of them are not yet compatible with the latest beta of Thunderbird 3. The email user needs to force compatibility in this case with the Nightly Tester Tools add-on (or edit the compatibility setting in the xpi file manually).

Extra Folder Columns

Thunderbird 2 users were able to display extra columns in the mail folder sidebar. These columns could display the size of each folder on the local hard drive, the total number of emails contained within and the amount of emails that have not been read yet. Not so with Thunderbird 3 which does not provide these additional columns for the folders at all.

Extra Folder Columns has been designed for Thunderbird 3 to add those three columns again to the web browser. All three data columns will be displayed by default but the user has the option to remove them individually so that only the columns are displayed that are of interest to the Thunderbird user.

download Extra Folder Columns

Show In/Out

Show In/Out has been designed for Thunderbird users who like to move email conversations, that is all incoming and outgoing emails, to one folder to have access to all emails of a conversation directly. Thunderbird by default does not show if an email was an incoming or outgoing email. That’s where Show In/Out steps in. It adds two new columns to the main window of Thunderbird. The first displays an icon showcasing if the email was incoming or outgoing, the second displays the name of the sender or recipient depending if the email was incoming or outgoing.

The developer has designed the add-on to replace the sender and recipient columns in the Thunderbird main window helping users who like to move all incoming and outgoing emails into the same folder.

download Show In/Out

ThunderBirthDay

ThunderBirthday will display the birthdays of email contacts in the Lightning calendar add-on. The extension has two dependencies that need to be installed before it can be installed. It first needs the Lighting calendar add-on for Thunderbird and second the MoreFunctionsForAddressBook add-on which adds the fields “birthday”, “birthmonth” and “birthyear” to the email address book.

Create a new calendar in Lightning by clicking File>New>Calendar… in the menu bar. Then choose “On My Computer” as location and “Birthdays from the Thunderbird addressbook” as type for your calendar. Also specify the address book to use as a source for birthdays. Finally choose a name for the new calendar.

Now open the “Edit Card” dialog of an address book card and set the birthday in the “Other data” tab. Note that these changes don’t take effect in the calendar until it gets reloaded. To do this either restart Thunderbird or right click on a calendar from the list, then choose “Reload Remote Calendars”.

Also note that the events generated by ThunderBirthDay cannot be modified with Lightning for the moment. Maybe future versions of the extension will be bidirectional.

download ThunderBirthDay

Forward

Thunderbird by default forwards email messages as attachments. This can be changed in Tools → Options → Composition → General so that the email messages are forwarded as inline messages instead. There is also an option in the Message menu to select either attachment or inline as the method of forwarding the selected emails in Thunderbird. This add-on simply moves this option to more prominent locations: The Forward button and Message context menus.

download Forward

Border Colors

If you have multiple email accounts configured in Thunderbird you might know that there is a chance that you send an email to a recipient from a wrong account. Border Colors is a very simple add-on for Thunderbird that color codes each account that has been configured in the email client. The colors have to be selected after the installation of the add-on as black is being used as the default color for all email accounts.

After configuration a border in the color that has been chosen during configuration will be shown when writing emails. A switch between accounts in the compose email window will also change the border color accordingly.

download Bordercolors

I hope you enjoyed this article. Please write a comment if you would like to have your say on a specific add-on mentioned in this article or would like to add one of your favorite Thunderbird add-ons so that other users can benefit from it as well.

Tags: Email, email client, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 3, thunderbird add-ons

Switch To Compact Headers In Thunderbird 3

Martin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:31:30 +0000

The standard email header in the mail client Thunderbird 3 spans across three rows. It displays information such as the the sender’s email, the subject, email recipient and toolbar buttons to quickly reply, forward, delete or tag the email. The email header can be expanded to display all email header information which are important if the technical details of the email need to be analyzed further. There is on the other hand no option to compact the header in Thunderbird to save space.

Most Thunderbird users probably do not need some of the information and options provided by default. This includes for example the information to whom the email was send or the action buttons like deleting emails which are also available on a right-click in the email itself.

That’s where the experimental add-on Compact Headers comes into play. The add-on is compatible with Thunderbird 3 only and can reduce the size of the email header to one row.

Thunderbird 3 Default Email Header:

Thunderbird 3 Compact Email Header:

The way the email header is displayed in compact form can be altered in the add-on’s options. It is possible to increase the size to two rows which can also hold some of the buttons that are provided in the standard Thunderbird header. Buttons can be individually selected in the options.

Compact Header for Mozilla Thunderbird 3 is an experimental add-on that is not automatically updating itself. The add-on comes with a “check for updates” button in the options. It is available at the Mozilla Thunderbird add-on repository at Mozilla.org.

Tags: Email, email headers, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird add-on

Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 Released

Martin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:53:26 +0000

The Mozilla Thunderbird development team has released beta 4 of the upcoming Thunderbird 3 desktop email client. The new version of the popular email client is already available for download at the Mozilla Thunderbird website. Downloads are as usual available for all supported operating systems (Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh) and languages.

The release notes contain a huge list of new features and improvements including a new email search with advanced filtering options, global search with autocomplete, smart folders, tabbed email messages, new add-ons manager, improved address book, better Gmail integration and integration into Windows Vista’s search results.

Improvements have been made to overall performance and stability as well as web compatibility and sustainability. The way IMAP connections are handled has been improved in this version of Thunderbird as well. Thunderbird can now download IMAP messages by default in the background “to allow for faster message loading and better offline operation”.

Users who are interested in the new version can download it from the Mozilla Thunderbird website. The usual precautions should be taken considering that this version is still a beta version that should not be used in a production environment. The full release notes can be accessed at this link.

Tags: Email, email client, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 3, thunderbird 3 beta 4

Thunderbird Quick Folders

Martin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:25:22 +0000

There are basically two types of desktop email software users. Type one uses one huge folder for all emails while type 2 neatly sorts emails into subfolders for better manageability. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Method one for example does not provide a good overview of emails that have been send by a specific sender or company, at least not in the time that it takes someone using method 2 to do the same. Method 2 on the other hand requires more time either to setup filters or sort emails manually into folders.

Thunderbird Quick Folders aids email users who work with multiple folders in their email client. The add-on will add a new toolbar to the Thunderbird header that can be used to drag and drop folders into it. These folders act as quick access points to the bookmarked folders. It is possible to access these email folders either by left-clicking on them or pressing the keyboard shortcut Alt 1-9 to go there.

The add-on for the email client is highly flexible and offers extended settings to change functionality and design of the add-on.

Options include changing the colors of the email bookmark tabs, displaying the mail count next to each email folder or to automatically focus on the message list when switching to another bookmarks tab. Quick Folders is available at the official Mozilla Thunderbird website. The add-on for the email client is compatible with all versions of the Thunderbird.

Thunderbird users who like to bookmark individual emails might want to take a look at the Bookmark Emails add-on which we reviewed a while ago at Ghacks.

Tags: bookmark emails, Email, email client, email software, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird

Taking Advantage Of Thunderbird’s Email Display Options

Martin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:32:51 +0000

If you are a Windows user who uses a desktop email client chance is that you either use Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. Mozilla Thunderbird is in many aspects what Firefox is to web browsers. A highly configurable desktop email client. This article will explain several of Thunderbird’s email display options that will provide additional information on a glance. These settings are in the open but missed by most users due to the way they are displayed in the email client.

If you open Mozilla Thunderbird in the classic view you are looking at a window that is divided into two areas. The left sidebar contains the email folders while the right window the emails that are contained in the folders and the contents of the selected email.

Thunderbird displays the same icon in the header of the folder and email area to change email display options. The display options can be accessed by left-clicking on the icon which will reveal several display options that can be enabled or disabled with another left-click.

The folder pane offers the three additional display options unread, total and size. Unread will display the unread count of folders, total the total amount of emails in a folder and size the size of that folder on the computer’s hard drive. These options offer several new ways of working with Thunderbird. It is for example possible to see the largest folders or the folders with the highest unread email count on a glance.

The very same display option menu is available in the email list in the right pane. This one contains additional display options that will display the information in additional columns in the same window. This includes sizes, email accounts, recipients, tags and about a dozen more.

These options can again be used to display additional information providing options to display and sort emails by size, recipients or email accounts. The two email display options described in the paragraphs before can for example be used to discover and delete the biggest attachments or emails of a webmail account like Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Live Mail.

Tags: desktop email client, Email, email options, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird tips

Auto Resize Email Picture Attachments In Thunderbird

Martin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:52:51 +0000

Modern digital cameras can produce large photos which makes it difficulty to send them to email recipients due to their sizes. Problems become apparent when the sending of the email takes a long time but also when the emails are rejected by the recipient’s email provider due to their total size. Computer users can resize the photos and pictures on their local computer system to decrease their size or upload them on the Internet to send the link to the shared photos to the email recipient instead.

The Auto Resize JPEG extension for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client offers another possibility. The extension will automatically resize pictures that are attached in the email client before they are send out by the user.

The Thunderbird extension will automatically recognize jpg image attachments and display a prompt after clicking on the send button. It is possible to optimize the images or skip the optimization. The options of the add-on contain settings to always optimize images in the email client (which will remove the prompt after clicking on the send button) and to specify a minimum height and width. The default values are set to 1024 pixels each. Options to change the quality level would be nice.

The extension for the Thunderbird email client can be very handy for users who regularly send image attachments in their email messages. It can save them time and bandwidth (and probably a few emails from angry recipients who received large emails). Auto Resize JPEG is available from the Mozilla Thunderbird website. It is currently only available for the Windows operating system.

Tags: Email, email client, mozilla thunderbird, resize attachments, resize images, thunderbird, thunderbird extension

Email Client Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 Update

Martin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:42:31 +0000

The Mozilla Thunderbird development team has released an important update for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. The upgrade which will increase the version of the email client to 2.0.0.23 includes one critical security fix that was reported by security researcher Dan Kaminsky. The compromise of SSL-protected communication vulnerability allows attackers to obtain certificates that would function for any site they would like to target.

The email client should pick up the update upon its next startup automatically. Thunderbird users can alternatively use the Help > Check For Updates function in the email client or visit the Mozilla Thunderbird website to obtain the update. The vulnerability, which was disclosed on August 1 is not only affecting the email client but also other Mozilla applications included Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or Firefox 3.0.13.

IOActive security researcher Dan Kaminsky reported a mismatch in the treatment of domain names in SSL certificates between SSL clients and the Certificate Authorities (CA) which issue server certificates. In particular, if a malicious person requested a certificate for a host name with an invalid null character in it most CAs would issue the certificate if the requester owned the domain specified after the null, while most SSL clients (browsers) ignored that part of the name and used the unvalidated part in front of the null. This made it possible for attackers to obtain certificates that would function for any site they wished to target. These certificates could be used to intercept and potentially alter encrypted communication between the client and a server such as sensitive bank account transactions.

Tags: email client, mozilla, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 2.0.0.23, thunderbird update

Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer

Martin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:47:34 +0000

Mozilla Thunderbird is probably the second most popular desktop email client next to Microsoft Outlook. One of its main advantages is the extension engine that users know from the Firefox web browser which makes it easy to create extensions for the email client that increase its functionality. ThreadVis is an interesting Thunderbird extension that visualizes email threads in the email client.

Thunderbird by default does not link email conversations in any way. This means that it can sometimes be difficulty to locate all emails of a conversation in the web browser. This is especially true since those emails are usually located in at least two different folders (Sent folder and Email Inbox).

The concept that ThreadVis introduces can be explained with a few words. It processes emails from selected folders (or all emails if the user selects that option) and creates links between emails if they are part of the same conversation.

It then visualizes this conversation in the email header which makes it easy to jump to all emails that are part of it. The emails are color coded in the header. Green dots visualize emails that have been received by the user while red emails are those that have been sent. The time it took for each reply is also shown in the visualisation.

The Thunderbird extension will display a configuration dialog after installation which can be used to define the folders that should be processed and cached by it. It is important to process all relevant folders (e.g. inbox and sent). Some emails are otherwise shown as missing in the visualization.

The visualization can also be displayed in its own separate window which might be useful for some users. ThreadVis is a great Thunderbird add-on for users who want to have better control over email conversations in the email client.

Tags: Email, email client, email threads, mozilla thunderbird, threadvis, thunderbird, thunderbird emails, thunderbird extension

Thunderbird 3 Beta 3

Martin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:43:49 +0000

The third beta of Thunderbird 3 has been uploaded to the Mozilla servers and is now available for public download. The new beta release is available for all supported operating systems (Windows, Linux and Mac) and interface languages. The new beta includes some of the core functionality that the development team plans to integrate into version 3 of the popular desktop email client. Probably the most notable change upon startup is the new tabbed interface. Users can now access emails that are opened in the email client by simply clicking on the corresponding tabs at the top.

Another interesting new feature is the quick message preview if multiple email messages have been selected. It basically displays about three lines and the subject of each email in the email window which is a very comfortable way of quickly glancing over multiple emails.

The smart folder mode is another new feature which basically combines folders from multiple email accounts. Instead of having to access multiple email inbox folders or sent folders they can now be accessed combined in the smart folder mode. Other notable changes are better Gmail integration for special folders and foreign languages, the ability to notice properly configured mailing lists and offering ways to respond to these emails and column headings which are can now be configured on a per-folder basis.

The changelog lists 592 new features, changes or bug fixes that the developers had made or added to the new release of Thunderbird.

Interested users should keep in mind that the email client is still a beta version. Caution and regular backups are advised. Users who need email for work should make sure that they have a backup in place in case somethings goes wrong.

Tags: email client, gmail, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 3, thunderbird beta

Select All Emails From Sender In Thunderbird

Martin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:57:37 +0000

Most users of the email client Thundebird – and most likely users of other email clients as well – sort their emails by date. There are other means of sorting emails though like sorting them by subject, sender, priority or attachment. If you sort your emails by date you might have noticed that this is not the best way of cleaning your email inbox. Most users like to select all emails from a specific sender and move them to another folder for archiving purposes.

If you want to do that in the Thunderbird email client you might need to change the way emails are sorted and displayed to be effective. The Gather The Sender add-on for Thunderbird makes this process more comfortable.

Gather The Sender adds a new entry to the right-click context menu in Thunderbird. The new entry can be used to select all email messages in the same email folder from the same sender. It therefor takes two clicks (one right-click on an email and one left-click on the “Select the mails from the same sender” entry) to select all emails from that sender.

This is an excellent way of archiving emails and cleaning the inbox of the email client. Gather The Sender is an add-on for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. It is compatible with all Thunderbird 2.x versions.

Tags: Email, email client, gather the sender, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird add-on

Change The Thunderbird Reply Email Layout

Martin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:30:05 +0000

Whenever a Thunderbird user replies to an email a default layout is being used to add information like the original authors name and email contents to the reply. Some users might want to change some of the elements that are added automatically. This can be for example useful if the user wants the replies to appear in a specific language that is not the default installation language of the email client. It is also possible to remove or add text or information from the replies.

All these parameters are handled in the Thunderbird configuration file. To get there click on [Tools] then [Options] to open the visible settings. Now click on the [Advanced] tab and there on the [Config Editor] entry which should open the Thunderbird configuration file which resembles that of the Firefox web browser.

Filter for the term [mailnews.reply] which should display nine entries that define several options when replying to emails in the Thunderbird email client.

Probably the most interesting parameters in these options are:

mailnews.reply_header_authorwrote – Change the default [%s wrote] to something else. The [%s] variable defines the name of the writer of the original email.
mailnews.reply_header_ondate – Change the default [On %s] to something else. The [%s] variable defines the date the original email was received.
mailnews.reply_header_originalmessage – Change the default [-------- Original Message --------] to something else or remove it completely if you feel it is not needed.

You can change a value by double-clicking on its line in the configuration menu of the Thunderbird email client.

Tags: Email, email client, emails, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird tips

Fix Slow Or Hanging Thunderbird Email Client

Martin — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:48:37 +0000

Thunderbird is a desktop email client that is seen by many as a viable alternative to Microsoft Outlook on the Windows operating system. Users who use the client heavily might experience slow downs or lags when using the desktop email client after some time. This can usually be attributed to corrupted msf files in the Thundebird profile folder. Thunderbird stores the emails in a file without file extension that is named after the folder name in the email client, for example inbox. Each of these files contain the emails of the specific folder. Each folder has a msf file associated with it that contains an index of all emails in that folder.

The problem is that these indexes can become corrupted over time which causes the slow downs and hangs that some user experience in the email client. The easiest way to fix this problem is to delete the msf files in the Thunderbird profile folder after closing the Thunderbird email client. Thunderbird will automatically rebuild the indexes on its next startup fixing any problems that were caused by these files.

It is of course recommended to backup the Thunderbird profile folder before deleting any files within (Check Backup Email Clients And Web Browsers).

Another possibility is to run a software program like ThunderFix. ThunderFix eliminates most of the hassles associated with the process. It will display a list of Thunderbird profiles that it found on the computer system after execution. All it takes to delete all msf files associated with the profile is to select the profile and click on the Fix Profile link.

It is again recommended to backup the profile before running the software program.

Tags: backup email, Email, email client, mozilla thunderbird, msf, rebuild msf, thunderbird, thunderbird fix

Email Client: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21

Martin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:04:12 +0000

A new version of the popular desktop email client Thunderbird is currently distributed to various mirror servers throughout the world. The Mozilla Messaging team will release the update once the transfers are finished and the websites have been updated with the latest information. This can usually take anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours after uploading the release to the official Mozilla ftp site.

Although the Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 release notes page is already up it has not been fully updated with information regarding this release. It mentions security related fixes in this version of Thunderbird but the link points to a page that has not been updated yet. The download link on the release notes page is also pointing to Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 and not the current release.

Many users would probably want to update their email client immediately after reading that it contains patches for security issues. Several users reminded us last time we posted a link to a release of Firefox and Thunderbird that we should not do so. So, no link for now which is kinda stupid as everyone with half a brain will be able to find the Mozilla ftp site with the download link of Thunderbird 2.0.0.21.

Everyone else will have to sit tight with an insecure version of Thunderbird until the official distribution process has been completed and the update is officially announced.

Some add-ons might stop working after installing Thunderbird 2.0.0.21. You could try and change the allowed version number manually or wait for the software developer to update the add-on for the email client.

Tags: desktop email, Email, email client, mozilla messaging, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 2.0.0.21, thunderbird update

Thunderbird 3 Beta 2

Martin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:41:06 +0000

The Thunderbird email client team is making progress. They released Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 yesterday for public download. Interested users should keep in mind that this is a beta version of the email client. It feels very stable but it can still produce bugs that might delete things unrecoverably. It is therefor not suggested to try out Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 in a work environment. More than 342 changes have been made between beta 1 and beta 2, many bug fixes but some more notable ones include new features like the archiving feature that has been taken right from Gmail. Thunderbird is automatically creating a new entry Archives in the mail folder structure with subfolders for years and months.

Messages can be archived pressing the A key highlighted or by using the archive button that appears in the header area of each message. They will be automatically sorted into the correct year and month folder in the mail structure. That’s very handy for users who receive lots of messages per day that they have to keep.

Another change is a central activity manager that lists the most recent changes in the email client, e.g. retrieving or moving mail. That’s not a lot of new features but Thunderbird was already a very solid mail client. Especially the archiving feature can save lots of time for some users. Thunderbird 3 beta 2 is available for all supported operating systems and languages.

Tags: Email, email client, emails, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 3, thunderbird archiving, thunderbird beta, thunderbird download, thunderbird features

Thunderbird Archiving Shortcuts

Martin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:22:26 +0000

The Archive This Thunderbird add-on provides configurable keyboard shortcuts to archive email messages with the press of a button. The add-on is compatible with all versions of Thunderbird 2. It is experimental which not only becomes obvious while trying to download the add-on but also when looking at the keyboard shortcuts that have been implemented by the software author.

The Thunderbird extension adds ten keyboard shortcuts to the Thunderbird email client which can be used to archive email messages. The functions are mapped to [CTRL 0..9] which proves to be difficulty as Thunderbird uses [CTRL 1] and [CTRL 2] for different functions making those two keyboard shortcuts not working initially.

The user can basically map a folder of his mailbox to one of the keyboard shortcuts. This essentially means that any selected mail would be moved to that folder upon pressing the keyboard shortcut. The shortcut [CTRL 0] has been reserved to work with mail filters which can also be defined in the extension. Pressing that shortcut while working in Thunderbird will apply all configured filters to the selected messages.

This proves to be a very effective method of moving mails quickly to designated folders in Thunderbird. It is possible to correct the non-working [CTRL 1] and [CTRL 2] keys by installing the excellent Keyconfig add-on for Thunderbird. Keyconfig will display all keyboard shortcuts in the email client and provide the means to change them. It can be used to either change the keyboard shortcuts of the extension or to change the original keyboard shortcuts to something else so that all keys can be used when working with the extension.

Tags: email client, keyboard shortcut, keyconfig, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird add-on, thunderbird archive, thunderbird extension, thunderbird shortcuts

Thunderbird Email Address Crawler

Martin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:47:29 +0000

The email client Mozilla Thunderbird comes with the option to import address books from various other email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Eudora or text files. There is however no automatic way to import contact information from a set of emails. Why might that be useful? Imagine having to communicate with a group of users. You could import their contact information into a new address book from emails that you have previously received.

The Email Address Crawler add-on for Thunderbird does that. You can point it at any mail folder in Thunderbird and import the contact information into any address book automatically. The add-on comes with a few filters to make the automatic import more reliable. It is possible to specify if mails should be imported from the To, From or CC fields and if there should be a minimum amount of emails from a person before they are imported.

The add-on will automatically select the most complete email if different versions are available meaning that it will prefer Full Name email@address.org over email@address.org

The add-on provides an excellent way of creating new mailing lists by importing contact information automatically into address books.

Tags: address book, Email, email client, import address book, import contact information, mailing lists, mozilla thunderbird, outlook import, thunderbird

Thunderbird Filter Additions

Martin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:18:55 +0000

The email client Mozilla Thunderbird comes with a few mail filters preinstalled that can be used to automatically process incoming emails. The actions that can be selected as a Thunderbird filter are limited to moving, copying, deleting, forwarding or tagging messages, adding stars, setting mail priorities, marking as read, setting the junk status or replying with templates. While the actions do include several of the most used filters they do lack some actions that are available in other mail clients.

The experimental Mozilla Thunderbird 3 add-on FiltaQuilla adds those additional actions to the Thunderbird Filter settings, in particular filters to launch a software program, append text to subjects, remove tags or stars, mark the email as replied or unread, copy the mail as read or disable notifications.

Probably the most interesting filter of this list is the filter to launch a file after receiving an email message that meets the requirements.

Each Thunderbird filter can be activated and deactivated in the options of the Thunderbird add-on. The mail filters can be selected in the Tools > Message Filters menu.

The Thunderbird add-on is unfortunately only compatible with Thunderbird 3 and not with the more widely used Thunderbird 2. Thunderbird 3 is currently available in Beta 1.

Tags: email client, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird 3, thunderbird add-on, thunderbird email, thunderbird extension, thunderbird filter, thunderbird filters

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 Released

Martin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:00:18 +0000

A new version of the popular email client Thunderbird is currently distributed to official mirror website which means it is usually only a matter of 12-24 hours before the announcement of the new release is published on the Thunderbird homepage. It takes another 12-24 hours before the build in update checker will notify the user about the available update of the email client. Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 is already available for download on the primary ftp server ftp.mozilla.org.

Downloads are provided for all supported operating systems and languages and it is only a matter of finding the right location. This can be confusing, here are a few direct links:

Windows US Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.19
Linux US Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.19
Mac US Mozilla Thundebird 2.0.0.19

And the links to the folders that contain all language versions:

Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 Windows
Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 Linux
Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 Mac

The new version can be installed as usual. There are no release notes yet, they will most likely be published later today on the Mozilla Thunderbird website.

Update:

Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 fixes seven security vulnerabilities.

Tags: Email, email client, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird 2.0.0.19, thunderbird download, thunderbird release

Fix Thunderbird Junk Filter Not Working Anymore

Martin — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:01:29 +0000

Here is a fix for a problem that was encountered recently on a Windows XP test system running the latest version of the email client Mozilla Thunderbird. The Junk Mail filter in Thunderbird stopped working suddenly. Mail was not marked as junk anymore and the manual Junk controls (mark mail as Junk or Run Junk Mail Controls On Folder) did not have an effect as well.

This was bad news as the system received hundreds of emails per day with a good percentage of it being spam. There had to be an explanation for this; And there was. Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 was previously installed on the test system. The security program made use of an anti-spam module which checked all incoming emails for spam. It integrated itself nicely into Mozilla Thunderbird at that time.

After uninstalling Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 the junk mail controls stopped working in Thunderbird. It was an almost sure bet that this was related to Kaspersky. To verify this assumption the software was installed again. It turned out that the mail filter in Thunderbird started working again after the installation completed (even before a restart) which confirmed that the problem was related to Kaspersky.

The next assumption was that the email client Thunderbird had to be closed before the uninstallation of the security software. It could have been a rights-problem that the uninstaller could not edit Thunderbird related files that were in use on the system.

After closing Mozilla Thunderbird the uninstallation of Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 went through without problems. The important part however was that the Junk Filter in Thunderbird was still working as intended.

To see a broader picture: It does not necessarily have to be Kaspersy Internet Security 2009 that causes those problems after uninstallation. Basically any application that interferes with the junk mail filters can cause a similar problem. Good to know that it can be solved that easily.

Update:

There is another option if that is not working in first place. All you need to do is disable the anti-spam module in the Kaspersky software to disable it before uninstalling the software. This way the Thunderbird junk filter will keep on working after the uninstallation.

Tags: email client, kaspersky internet security, mozilla thunderbird, spam filter, thunderbird, Thunderbird Junk Filter, thunderbird tips

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.18

Martin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:59:33 +0000

A new version of the email client Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 is currently distributed to mirror sites to prepare for the official update announcement that is expected to be released later today. The only way to download the new version right now is to download the Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 release from the Mozilla ftp site.

The release is already available for all supported languages and operating systems. Neither the Check For Updates nor the official website reveal that a new version is about to be released.

This includes the release notes which still show the information about Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.17. The release notes usually get updated almost simultaneously with the updates going live.

Tags: Email, email client, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 2.0.0.18, thunderbird email, thunderbird release

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5 Useful Thunderbird 3 Add-Ons That You Might Not Have Heard About Yet

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Switch To Compact Headers In Thunderbird 3

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Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 Released

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Thunderbird Quick Folders

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Taking Advantage Of Thunderbird’s Email Display Options

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Auto Resize Email Picture Attachments In Thunderbird

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Email Client Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 Update

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Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer

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Thunderbird 3 Beta 3

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Select All Emails From Sender In Thunderbird

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Change The Thunderbird Reply Email Layout

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Fix Slow Or Hanging Thunderbird Email Client

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Email Client: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21

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Thunderbird 3 Beta 2

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Thunderbird Archiving Shortcuts

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Thunderbird Email Address Crawler

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Thunderbird Filter Additions

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Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 Released

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Fix Thunderbird Junk Filter Not Working Anymore

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Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.18

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