Thunderbird does not come with options to set different archiving folders for emails, which means that users who want to have more than just a single archive folder per year need to move the emails manually into other folders.

Or, they could use QuickArchiver for the Thunderbird desktop email client which is a brand new add-on that speeds up the archiving noticeably.

The idea behind the extension is simple. When you archive emails, you usually archive emails from the same sender into the same folder. The extension remembers the target folders once you start archiving emails, for instance by pressing a or moving emails to another folder using the context menu or drag and drop.

These folders can then be displayed in the Thunderbird inbox, so that it takes only one click to move a particular email into the previously used folder.

You need to enable the Folder header in the Thunderbird mail view after installing the extension to make use of the feature. This is done with a click on the rightmost icon of the inbox header bar and the selection of Folder from the available options.

Once enabled it will display the last archive folder of that particular email sender. A click on the location moves the selected email automatically into that folder without further confirmation or menus.

The technique used is different from filtering emails into folders. Filtering is an automated process which means that the user cannot read the email subject or body before it is moved. With QuickArchiver, that is possible.

QuickArchiver is a handy extension for Thunderbird users who archive emails from one sender in the same folder. Interested users can download the Thunderbird extension from the official Mozilla Thunderbird extension repository.

Web Application Tab (WAT) is just one of the possible extensions that offer that functionality. Its core advantage over other solutions is its simplicity. All it takes is to configure specific web addresses in the application to open them in tabs in the email client whenever they need to be accessed.

Say you want to have access to your Google Calendar, Hotmail Inbox or Facebook profile page. All of this and a lot more is easily done with WAT.

Web addresses are added in the options. They are accessible from the WAT menu at the top of the email client. A new application is defined by a name and an application url, for Gmail this could be Gmail and https://mail.google.com/ for instance.

The order of websites can be changed easily in the options, and it is possible to delete applications that are no longer needed. Each application is opened in a tab in the background by default with an option to hold down Shift to reverse it.

All added web applications are accessible from the WAT menu at the top. They open in tabs in the email client and can be used just like they would have been opened in Firefox. Having said that, it is possible to use all websites and applications that work in Firefox.

Applications in tabs stay open even after the email client has been closed by the user. Thunderbird does not come with forward or backward buttons by default. It is possible to right-click on a page to make use of the buttons or to use the shortcuts that are added by the extension. More information about those shortcuts are available at the extension’s home over at Mozilla.com.

Web Application Tab is a versatile, straightforward extension to open websites in Thunderbird.

All it takes is to click on the phone number to initiate that call directly in the selected application. The preferences offer options to select one of the supported protocols. Available for selection are skype:, tel:, callto:, sip: and a custom url protocol.

It is furthermore possible to configure the extension to dial directly if a country code is present or open a menu instead. The menu is always displays if no country code is present.

Additional options include the configuration of text highlighting from the default light highlighting to none, medium or strong, if the own country code should be suppressed, if + should be replaced in phone numbers and how many numbers of recently used country codes should be displayed.

The extension processes each page or email and turns any phone number that matches the supported formats into a clickable link based on the user’s preferences.

A left-click on a phone number that has been turned into a link opens a selection menu which offers choices to call that number. The very same options are also available on right-click. A middle-click on the other hand bypasses the menu and launches the phone number directly in the selected application.

Some users are reporting compatibility problems of the extension and the Gmail website which I cannot confirm. The extension worked fine there as well.

Telify is available for both the Thunderbird email client and the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

Mailbox Alert works on the folder level which means that it works best if a distinct folder structure exists already as it would not make sense to configure alerts for the inbox unless it only catches high priority email messages by default.

New notifications are configured with a right-click on an email folder in Thunderbird and the selection of Mailbox Alert from the context menu.

Three actions or notifications are available. It is possible to show a message, play a sound or execute a command. Messages are configurable with macros to customize them. It is for instance possible to add the name of the sender to the notification.

Commands can be executables which can also be combined with available macros.

Two additional options are available to configure alerts for child folders and to block alerts for the child folder if alerts for a parent folder are already configured.

The full list of macros is available by clicking on Help in the configuration menu. The developer page contains additional information and a handy third party program to display popups in Windows when priority mail arrives.

The Thunderbird extension itself is offered at the official Mozilla website. It is compatible with Thunderbird 1 to 3.1.

One of the easiest options is to copy and paste whenever possible. While it is not possible to press a key to write the character, copy and paste works fine and the character will show up in the interface.

Another option is to switch the keyboard language interface, but that’s really only practical if you are writing exclusively in that language for a period of time, and not that useful if you only need a few characters here and there.

And then there are ALT characters which can be added to documents by pressing the ALT key on the keyboard and entering a number from the numpad of the keyboard. Problem here is that you need to know the number to use it.

Zombie Keys for Firefox and Thunderbird offers an elegant alternative. The add-on adds a number of keyboard shortcuts to the program it is installed in. These shortcuts are used to write the foreign language special characters. Shortcuts have been reduced to a minimum by adding multiple characters to one shortcut. The user basically flips through all available characters of a shortcut.

Zombie Keys is available both for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client and the Firefox web browser.

Theme Font and Size Changer is a Firefox add-on that offers to change the default Firefox font and size with a few mouse clicks.

The Firefox add-on adds an icon to the Firefox statusbar (or add-on bar if Firefox 4 is used). A left-click on the icon opens a simple menu with pulldown menus to change the Firefox font and size of the font.

The font listing is directly taken from the system font directory. Normal, which means default, options are available to make it easier to restore the default font settings of the browser if the need should arise.

The font change affects Firefox menus, toolbars, windows and other native graphical user interface elements. It does not affect the display of fonts on websites.

It is ideal for users who want to increase or decrease the font size and type of the interface because of specific requirements.

Visually impaired users can for instance increase the size of the font easily without changing the font type. This may also be helpful for widescreen users or users with high definition monitors.

The extension is not only compatible with the Firefox web browser, it is also compatible with the Mozilla email client.

The Firefox add-on is compatible with all Firefox versions from 3 to the latest Firefox 4 builds. Thunderbird users can download the extension from here.

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)

Prevent Delete has been designed to protected messages in the Thunderbird email client. The extension uses tags to identify protected emails. By default, the important tag is used to determine whether a message can be deleted or not. The important tag is one of the standard tags in the email client.

All emails that have been tagged as important are automatically protected by the Thunderbird add-on. Normally, emails can be deleted by selecting them and pressing the delete button on the keyboard.

With Prevent Delete installed a verification window is displayed that is asking the user if the email should be deleted or not.

It is still up to the user to click yes to delete the email or no to prevent the deletion. Some Thunderbird users may however prefer to protect some emails completely. The options of the add-on offer to switch from delete confirmations to preventing the deletion of protected messages.

If the option is selected a message is shown to the user whenever the delete key is pressed while a protected message is selected. It is possible to disable that notification as well, so that nothing happens when delete is pressed while a protected email is selected.

Prevent Delete protects messages not only when delete is pressed, but also when delete message is selected from the right-click context menu.

Thunderbird users who use Important for all kinds of emails can select a different tag in the options.

Prevent Delete is available at the Mozilla Thunderbird repository. It is compatible with all Thunderbird 3 installations.

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.

PrivateID Reloaded for Thunderbird 3 has been designed to warn the user before the email is send on its way. The extension maintains a list of private email IDs and address books that it will compare all emails with.

It is possible to specify email addresses or strings like domain names to add all of the emails that match the string to the list automatically.

A warning will be displayed if a recipient of a private email is not found in the address books that have been added to the extension’s preferences.

It is still possible to send the email to the recipients but the warning gives the sender the option to rethink that step. It is for instance possible to opt out and change the email account that is used to send out the email.

PrivateID Reloaded can be downloaded from the Mozilla Thunderbird extension repository. The add-on is compatible with Thunderbird 1.5 to 3.0.x.

Update: The script has not been updated for a year and is no longer compatible with Thunderbird. It therefor has been pulled from the official add-on repository.

Photos are automatically taken from the Thunderbird address book if available with the option to display a generic avatar image or nothing at all if no photo is available or if the sender is not listed in the address book yet.

Thunderbird users have the option to pick a generic photo, a photo on the computer or a photo on the web for each contact of their address book. That is a default feature that the extension makes use of.

The extension places the photo into the email header of the currently active mail in Thunderbird.

A double-click on the photo leads right to the photo tab of the address book if the contact is already listed in it. If not, the sender needs to be listed first before the photo can be edited or added.

It may take some time to add photos to all or the most important contacts of the Thunderbird address book. It may however be worth it as it can really speed up identification when reading emails in the desktop email client.

The extension comes with several options that can be used to set a maximum size of a photo in pixels, the position of the photo and the behavior if there is no photo.

Other options include support for local photos (by using the email address as the name of the photo), domain wildcard photos, visual effects and a button to clear the thumbnail cache.

Display Contact Photo is only available for Thunderbird 3. It can be downloaded from the Mozilla Thunderbird add-on repository. The extension is updated regularly.

Extension developers have also added several interesting add-ons for the email client including the previously reviewed Sender Verification extension.

Quick Filter is another extension for Thunderbird 3 that adds email filtering capabilities to the web browser. The extension adds a small toolbar on top of the email column in the software program that can be used to filter the emails of the active folder in Thunderbird.

Five permanent filter options are displayed in the toolbar plus a text form to filter the emails by name.

The permanent filter options are there to display only unread or starred emails, emails send by contacts, emails by tag or emails with attachments. These email filters can be combined with the text filter to quickly find specific emails in the active folder.

The extension searches in the sender, recipients and subject header by default with the option to add the body text to search the email body as well. These filters can be configured as needed, it is for instance possible to only search in email bodies or by sender.

Another interesting option provided by the email filtering extension is the ability to make the filter settings permanent so that they are applied to other folders the user switches to. This can be enabled or disabled in the toolbar as well.

Quick Filter is a very handy extension for the Thunderbird email client that is most useful to filter emails in large mail folders.

The extension has now been integrated into Thunderbird 3 and therefor removed from the add-on repository.

The email Sender Verification extension for Mozilla Thunderbird integrates an automatic option to verify the senders into the email client. It basically tells the users if the sender that is shown in the from header of the email was the actual sender of the email. The extension uses the Sender Policy Framework and various reputation services like Spamhaus or Sender Score Certified to retrieve information about the domains.

The Sender verification add-on is compatible with Thunderbird 3. It adds a new column to the display of emails in the mail client which needs to be enabled. This is done by clicking on the header row icon that allows Thunderbird users to display additional columns with information in the client.

Sender Verify will look up all emails and display status information such as pass, fail, none or neutral to give the user an indication of the trustworthiness of particular emails.

The add-on displays information in the email’s header as well which gives further information that can be helpful to identify the email sender.

The Sender Verification extension is still in development but works fine as it is. The developer plans to add preferences, verification of hotmail accounts and other features to the extension in the future. The extension can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

There has not however been a way to integrate other Google services that are related to Gmail into Thunderbird. The Google Calendar Tab add-on for Thunderbird 3 changes this. It basically only displays the web interface of Google Calendar in a new tab in Thunderbird.

And since the extension uses the same account all information from that Google Calendar account are already available in Thunderbird. It is possible to view, edit and add events to Google Calendar which are then also visible on the Google Calendar website. If the calendar has been configured to show popups then they will be shown in Thunderbird as well.

The extension for the email client supports both Google Calendar and Calendar for Google Apps. Google Calendar Tab is an interesting add-on for Thunderbird that aids Google Calendar users who work with Thunderbird to integrate their calendar into the email client. There are other options to do that. IIRC it is possible to integrate Google Calendar into Lightning as well.

It provides access to more than 30 tweaks to change settings and options in Thunderbird. The Mail Tweak options are displayed in a scrollable list upon installation. Each configured entry is displayed with a checkmark next to its name while the currently inactive tweaks use blank checkboxes. A click in a checkbox activates or disables the selected tweak.

Tweaks that are provided by the extension include useful ones like changing the number of address lines that are displayed by default when writing emails, changing the default message font family, a collected reply option to reply to all selected messages in a single message or automatically hiding the folder pane in Thunderbird.

All tweaks including a short description of their functionality are available at the website of the extension developer. The website contains download links for both versions of Thunderbird and users should ensure that they download the correct version for their email client.

Mail Tweak offers several interesting settings for the email client that many Thunderbird users will find useful. The developer is constantly improving the extension to add new tweaks and optimize existing ones. Definitely an extension to look out for.

Mail Merge is an experimental Thunderbird add-on that increases the email client’s mass mailing capabilities. It does so by introducing two new options to the email software: Mass Mail and Personal Mail.

Mass Mail

Mass Mail is ingenious. The user writing the email starts by writing one email that should be send out to all recipients. This includes the title, body and possible attachments. Then all recipients are added to that email in the appropriate fields. A click on the Mass Mail button (available under File > Mass Mail) will now create individual emails for each email recipient and put them in the outbox of the email client. Each recipient will therefor get an individual email message so that no other email addresses appear in the mail header.

Personal Mail

One problem of the Mass Mail approach is that the emails cannot address the individual. Adding Hej Frank to a mass mail would send that greeting to all other recipients as well. That’s where Personal Mail comes into play. Personal Mail makes use of variables and csv files to address individuals in mass mailings. Variables can be added to any field in the email in the form {{Variable}}. It is for instance possible to write an email like the following:

To: {{Mail}}
Subject: {{ID}}: Notification
Body: Hi {{Name}}, this email …

The selection of File > Personal Mail after writing the email will open a dialog with the mandatory option to load a csv file containing the information. The developer does not describe how the csv should look like and I was not able to figure it out on my own. Users who would like to make use of that feature might want to contact the developer directly. The email address is published at the Mozilla Thunderbird page of the add-on. Mail Merge is compatible with both Thunderbird 2 and 3 and can be downloaded from the official Mozilla website.

Fox Clock will add clocks to the Thunderbird status bar. Those clocks – unlike in Firefox – will be displayed next to each other in the desktop email program. This is more comfortable as all clocks are visible all the time opposed to the one clock that is visible in Firefox.

The add-on comes with additional options to configure the time format, position and style, time zone data and more. That’s another positive aspect of the add-on when compared to its Firefox counterpart. The clocks can be displayed on the left or right side of the Thunderbird status bar. An alternative is the option to display them as a toolbar instead which could then be placed in the Thunderbird header area.

Fox Clocks in an helpful add-on for email users who regularly correspond with email users from other places in the world. The Thunderbird add-on is compatible with all versions of Thunderbird. It can be downloaded from the official Mozilla Thunderbird website.

A third option is provided by the Thunderbird add-on eMarks which supposedly stands for email bookmarks. The add-on adds a new toolbar to the email client. Emails can then be dragged and dropped into that toolbar easily. This makes these emails available from every folder the user might be in. These emails are then accessible with a left-click of the mouse. Thunderbird will automatically switch to the folder the email is stored in and display it in the preview pane.

A right-click on any bookmarked email will open a context menu with options to open the email in a new window or tab and to rename or delete it. Users who prefer no additional toolbar in the email client can disable it and access the bookmarked emails from the file menu at the top. An emarks entry is added by the extension that can be used to access the bookmarked emails with three clicks of the mouse. Not as comfortable as the toolbar solution but better if space is an issue.

The eMarks extension for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client is available at the Mozilla Thunderbird website. It is compatible with all the latest versions of the desktop email client (including Thunderbird 3 beta).

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.

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.