gHacks technology news » thunderbird tips

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

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 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

Copy Tables In Thunderbird

Martin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:31:41 +0000

Tables can be embedded in emails easily. If a Thunderbird user receives an email that contains a table he is up for a problem though. It does not matter how he tries to copy the table or selected parts of it because the end result will always be that the formatting is lost. There is no way to copy a table from Thunderbird into Microsoft Excel or similar applications and retain the rows and columns of that table.

Table 2 Clipboard is a Thunderbird extension that adds this much needed feature to Thunderbird. The extension can be used to copy a table or part of it to the clipboard retaining the format of it. Pasting that data into a spreadsheet will put the data into rows and columns just like the original data was.

The add-on has to be downloaded from Mozilla and installed using the Tools > Addons menu in Thunderbird. A click on Install in that menu will open a file browser where the downloaded extension has to be selected.

The extension adds two entries to the right-click context menu. The first is always available which will copy the whole table to the clipboard. The second is only available when CTRL-selecting table cells to copy only those selected cells to the clipboard. A shortcut CTRL Shift C is also available to copy selected table cells to the clipboard.

The Thunderbird extension could be useful for Thunderbird users who regularly receive tables in their emails that are embedded in the message’s body and not attached in separate files.

Tags: copy tables, email client, mozilla thunderbird, tables thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird addon, thunderbird extension, thunderbird tips

Nstmp Folders In Thunderbird

Martin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:10:24 +0000

I recently spotted two new folders in Thunderbird which I definitely did not create. The names of the folders where nstmp and nstmp-1 and they did contain mails from the main email inbox folder. That was strange on first sight because it was not obvious why those folders were created in first place.It turned out that Thunderbird had created the two folders during folder compacting.

Thunderbird is creating the nstmp folders when it is compacting folders. When Thunderbird is interrupted during folder compacting it will not delete the nstmp folders that contain the temporary emails of the process up to the point where the compacting process was stopped. Compacting will stop when Thunderbird is (accidentaly or due to a crash) closed during compacting or when a new email arrives during that operation.

Those nstmp folders can normally be deleted but a user should check the original folder to make sure that it still contains all the mails that are listed in the nstmp folder. If that is the case the folder can be easily deleted by right-clicking it and selecting delete from the context menu.

Tags: compacting folders, compressing folders, Email, email client, nstmp folders, thunderbird, thunderbird tips

Sync Gmail Contacts with Thunderbird

Martin — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:26:56 +0000

Most users that I know have several email accounts at various email providers. I’m using about ten email accounts actively in Thunderbird and web interfaces and always thought that there must be a way to sync the contact information. Late last night I discovered the Zindus (via Download Squad) Thunderbird extension which syncs the Gmail (and Google Reader, Google Calendar) contacts with the Thunderbird address book.

The Thunderbird add-on can be installed as usual by downloading the file to the computer and installing it from the Tools > Add-ons menu in Thunderbird. Before it can be used it has to be configured. It actually provides two different possibilities to sync the contacts. Both, Google and Zimbra, require a server address, username and password to function properly. I cannot really say much about Zimbra because I’ve never heard about it before. It seems to be a service that gives access to several mail accounts in one interface.

After adding the required information a test connection can be used to see if the connection to the server is successful. By default auto sync is enabled which means that the contacts will automatically be synced.

Please note that syncing means that both the Gmail account as well as the Thunderbird address book will contain the same contacts in the end. Auto Sync is trigged by two parameters that can be configured in the Thunderbird config (Tools > Options > Advanced > Config Editor), they are:

extensions.zindus.system.as_timer_delay_on_start – the number of seconds after startup
extensions.zindus.system.as_timer_delay_on_repeat – the number of seconds after the first auto-sync

The following information are synced between Gmail and Thunderbird:

Full Name
Primary Email address and Second Email address
Phone Numbers: Home, Work, Work Fax, Pager, Mobile
Instant Messaging (AIM)
Company and Title
Notes

Zindus is compatible to the latest official version of Thunderbird and Thunderbird 3 alpha.

Tags: Email, gmail, google-mail, thunderbird, thunderbird add-on, thunderbird tips

Five Advanced Thunderbird Tips

Martin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:14:05 +0000

Thunderbird is my mail software of choice even though I do have various webmail accounts. I simply prefer my mail to be on my computer and not on a server somewhere on the Internet. I run a fairly customized version of Thunderbird and I would like to share five advanced Thunderbird tips with you that I implemented in my version.

I’m going to show you how to reduce the size of the attachment icon, change the reply header, password protect the message pane of IMAP accounts, only display folders with unread messages and how you can protect Thunderbird with a master password that works similar to the Firefox master password.

If you have a tip on your own reply with it in the comments, I’m always looking for great ways to improve my work flow in Thunderbird.

Reduce the Size of the Attachment Icon

The attachment icon in Thunderbird is fairly large and takes up lots of space beneath the message in Thunderbird. You can change the large icon into a smaller icon in the Thunderbird configuration. A click on Tools > Options loads the Configuration. Click on the Advanced tab and there on the Config Editor button, this loads the about:config menu that you know from Firefox.

Filter for the name mailnews.attachments.display.largeView and double-click it to set the value to false. This will reduce the icon noticeably.

Change the Reply Header

The standard reply header in Thunderbird is “name wrote”. It is possible to customize or disable the reply header. This option can be found in the user.js file in the Thunderbird profile folder. Search for a heading named // Change the reply header and change it accordingly. Everything is explained in there.

Password protect the message pane of IMAP accounts

You can password protect the message pane of your IMAP accounts in the Thunderbird configuration. Just open the about:config window again like you did in the first tip. Enter the preference mail.password_protect_local_cache in the filter and change the value from false to true by double-clicking it.

Only display folders with unread messages

I use a rather complex folder structure that gets in my way if I want to just read through all the unread mails. You might have noticed the <> icons above your folder pane that are on the right side of the All Folders text. If you click on one of them you switch to a different folder view mode and the first one when clicking on the right arrow is the Unread Folders mode that displays only folders that contain unread messages

Set a Master Password in Thunderbird.

If you do not set a master password anyone can access your mail passwords. Please do not confuse this with disallowing anyone access to your mails. This only prevents users from retrieving new mail and from accessing your mail passwords. You can set the Master Password in the Privacy Tab of the Thunderbird options.

Tags: Email, email client, thunderbird, thunderbird tips

Group Mails in Thunderbird chronologically

Martin — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:25:09 +0000

Mails are sorted chronologically in Thunderbird by default but they are not grouped. Grouped means special folders for mails that arrived today, yesterday, last week, two weeks ago and old mail. This way of sorting mails is incredibly helpful for a better overview in my opinion.

You can enable that view by clicking on View > Sort By > Group By Sort G. Every mail that you have received will be sorted into one of the five special folders mentioned above. Found this little tip at mmynews, a German tech related blog. Take a look at the screenshot to see how this looks in Thunderbird

The view menu offers several other ways to display mails in Thunderbird. You can enable a threaded view for instance or sort the mails by another variable than date. Possible variables include Sender, Subject, Tags and Priority.

Tags: Email, mozilla, thunderbird, thunderbird tips

Thunderbird Duplicate Contact Manager

Martin — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:17:09 +0000

I introduced a Thunderbird extension to remove duplicate mails yesterday and I want to continue today by writing about a Thunderbird extension that checks for duplicates in the Thunderbird address book. The add-on handles one address book at the time currently which is a little unfortunate but the author promises to deliver the possibility to check all existing address books in a future version.

Duplicate entries can have several reasons. Besides corrupt address book files it can also be that the same contact send you mails from different accounts. You can use the Duplicate Contact Manager to merge those information by adding the second email to the first address book entry and deleting it afterwards.

The add-on can be started by opening the address book in Thunderbird and clicking on the – newly added – Duplicates menu and there on the Find and manage Duplicates entry.

The process takes a while and is semi-automatic. There is no information how the extension compares the address book entries but my understanding is that it compares several variables such as displayed name, first and second name and displays those entries if it finds a match.

This does mean however that you will get lots of matches for popular first names such as John or Mary. Takes a while as well depending on the amount of contacts in your address book.

Tags: thunderbird add-ons, thunderbird tips

Thunderbird Remove Duplicate Mails

Martin — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:09:14 +0000

Duplicate mails can be a problem in the most advanced email applications. It does not matter if you use Outlook, Thunderbird or a self coded mail program, duplicate mails can be a problem in all of them. This can happen for instance if you merge folders in the mail program or if a server or download error has the result that the mails are downloaded twice from the mail server.

The Remove Duplicate Messages extension for Thunderbird is able to quickly get rid if duplicate mails in Thunderbird. Just right-click a folder in Thunderbird after installation the extension and choose Remove Duplicate Messages from the menu. Mails can be sorted by variables like sender, messageid or subject.

A test run on my main computer had the result that it did show more than 1000 duplicate messages. I thought that this was an error at first but it was not. The extension marks one mail with the keep flag and all other mails that are duplicates of it with the DEL flag.

A left click on a mail opens the containing folder of it, a right-click a small popup window with the most important details of the selected mail.

Oh, and guess what. Deleting those 1000 mails reduced the size of all mailboxes by more than 60 Megabytes.

Tags: Email, thunderbird tips

Use Thunderbird and Thunderbird Portable

Martin — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:58:07 +0000

Thunderbird portable is the portable version of Thunderbird, it does not require an installation which makes it an ideal tool for USB sticks and removable storage devices. I’m using Thunderbird on my desktop computer and decided that I wanted to use Thunderbird Portable on my USB drive to be able to check mails when on the road.

The theory was to copy all the mails, profile settings and other settings from Thunderbird to the Thunderbird portable folder and use it from there. It took some time but I finally managed that Thunderbird portable had all the mails, contacts and settings that I have been using in Thunderbird for some years now.

Download the portable version of Thunderbird and install it on your hard drive or device that you want to use. Please note that this installation is more or less only an unpacking of the contents, nothing will be written to the Registry or system files.

Locate your Thunderbird profile folder which can normally be found in “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default”. Now copy the files localstore.rdf, abook.mab, prefs.js, the Mail and News folder to the profile folder of the Thunderbird portable directory. That folder is located in ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile.

Replace the files if asked and open the file prefs.js afterwards. You will notice that the mail accounts are pointing to the profile folder of the normal Thunderbird installation, this has to change. Replace all paths to the local Thunderbird profile folder (the one starting with C:\\Documents and Settings\\username with the path to the portable Thunderbird folder.

A valid path would look like this: F:\\Thunderbird\\ThunderbirdPortable\\Data\\profile\\Mail\\Local Folders. Please note that you have to use double \\ instead of single \. This has to be done for every mail account that you use. All are located in the same file though, so no need to worry that much.

Once that file has been edited you can start the portable Thunderbird installation. I changed one setting in portable Thunderbird, I did not want it to download and delete the mail from the mail server. I changed that so that it would download the mails but leave them on the server.

Click on Tools > Account Settings and there on every Server Settings entry. Check Leave messages on server for all accounts and close the settings afterwards. Another option would be to sync both profiles whenever both are connected to the same PC.

Syncing is probably the better option. You could use Sync Toy if you use Windows XP to sync both Mail folders with ease. I write about that in another article.

Tags: Email, thunderbird tips

Remove Duplicate Address Book Entries in Thunderbird

Martin — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:46:02 +0000

It can happen that you end up with duplicate address book entries in Mozilla Thunderbird and wonder how you can remove them so that only one entry per contact is visible in the Thunderbird Address Book. The current Thunderbird address book is most likely fragmented or corrupted and the easiest way to fix that is to create a new Address Book and copy the contents of the old Address Book into the new one.

You should backup your Thunderbird profile before you start this process. The easiest way would be to use the software MozBackup which creates a backup of a selected profile with just a few clicks.

After the profile data has been saved you can begin the process of creating a new Address Book in Thunderbird to get rid of Duplicate Address Book entries.

Click on Tools > Address Book which opens the Address Bock. Click now on File > New Address Book and enter a new name for it. This is only temporary, so a name like ‘temp address book’ would do
Click on an entry in your old Address Book, use the shortcut CTRL + A to mark all entries
Press CTRL and drag & drop the entries to the new Address Book. Check the number of Address Cards, they have to be identical.
Go back to the Personal Address Bock, mark all messages and delete them.
Restart Thunderbird, open the Address Book menu again
Now click on the new Address Book and mark all messages. Drag & Drop them back to the Personal Address Book. Compare the figures again, make sure they are identical.
Restart Thunderbird once again and use the recreated Address Book

Tags: thunderbird, thunderbird tips

How to get mail from all thunderbird accounts at once

Martin — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 09:27:16 +0000

The email client Thunderbird does not necessarily retrieve messages from all of your mail accounts at startup. By default the first mail account will be checked on startup and all mail accounts will be checked every ten minutes. The following user.js tweak changes this behavior in the way that Thunderbird retrieves mail from all accounts at startup as well.

All you need to do is locate the file user.js which should be in your profiles folder. The user.js file does not exist by default and you might need to create it my right-clicking and choosing new, text document and naming it user.js. Once this is done you are ready to add the following lines of code to it.

user_pref(”mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new”, true);
user_pref(”mail.check_all_pop_folders_for_new”, true);

Once this is done restart thunderbird and mail from all accounts should be automatically received.

Tags: mozilla, pop3, smtp, thunderbird, thunderbird tips

gHacks technology news » thunderbird tips

Taking Advantage Of Thunderbird’s Email Display Options

Related posts

Change The Thunderbird Reply Email Layout

Related posts

Fix Thunderbird Junk Filter Not Working Anymore

Related posts

Copy Tables In Thunderbird

Related posts

Nstmp Folders In Thunderbird

Related posts

Sync Gmail Contacts with Thunderbird

Related posts

Five Advanced Thunderbird Tips

Related posts

Group Mails in Thunderbird chronologically

Related posts

Thunderbird Duplicate Contact Manager

Related posts

Thunderbird Remove Duplicate Mails

Related posts

Use Thunderbird and Thunderbird Portable

Related posts

Remove Duplicate Address Book Entries in Thunderbird

Related posts

How to get mail from all thunderbird accounts at once

Related posts