The ten most useful thunderbird add-ons
I've published a great deal of information about Firefox and tons of extensions that have been developed for it but I've never done the same for Thunderbird, the email client that is developed by Mozilla.
I started using Thunderbird about a week ago when I imported all my emails from Opera to it and I like the email client a lot. It is fast, I can sort all emails the way I like it and the spam mail filter is awesome even without third party tools.
The list of extensions disappointed me a little bit, 297 add-ons is not much considering that Firefox has 1863 add-ons listed. I nevertheless compiled a list of the ten most useful Thunderbird add-ons according to my opinion, yours may and probably will differ on the subject.
Update: We have removed all extensions that are not compatible with the most recent versions of the Thunderbird email client.
- Minimize to Tray - You can't minimize thunderbird to tray, you can only minimize it to the taskbar or close it completely. You could alternatively use a third party tool like RBtray instead.
- United States English Dictionary - A great spellchecking dictionary.
- Lightning - Thunderbird has no calendar and lightning adds calendar functionality. Currently under development.
- Dod Configuration - Department of Defense Configuration. Configures your application for use within the Department of Defense.
- Addressbooks Synchronizer - Synchronize files if you use Thunderbird on different computers, like notebook and desktop or home and work.
- Clippings - Have some standard sentences that you use a lot in mails ? Use Clippings to save them and paste them easily whenever you need them.
- Maximize message pane - maximizes the message preview pane without opening a new window.
- Text size toolbar - Adds buttons to the toolbar to change the size of the text.
- ReminderFox - works as well in Thunderbird, reminds you of events to come.
- Quicktext - create templates for emails that you write over and over again.
Five more, good ones but specialized:
- Track Package - You ship or receive lots of packages each day? eBay junkies perhaps? This extension is for you, mark a tracking number and check where the package is.
- Okopipi - Report spam to central databases.
- abc Tajpu - write foreign characters with this extension. Surely looks bad to write something like smoerebroed the way I do.. smørebrød it is i think..
- Signature Switch - one for work, one for home, one for friends, one for p...
- Nested Quote Remover - Remove nested quotes before it becomes ugly.
Two not so serious ones:
- Quitomozilla - Helps you stop smoking by displayed the time you stopped, the cigarettes that you did not smoke in that time and the amount of money that you saved, works in Thunderbird and Firefox for maximum results.
- Bork Bork Bork - The Swedish chef would speak the text this way.. Smoerebroed all the way..
While all extensions are still available for download for the email client, it needs to be noted that some may not work anymore in the latest version of it.
Update: Time has passed, and lots of useful extensions have been created for the Thunderbird email client in that time. Here is a list of new extensions that you may want to consider.
- Lightning adds a calendar to Thunderbird which you can synchronize.
- Enigmail adds OpenPGP support to the email client.
- Theme Font & Size Changer enables you to change text size and colors in Thunderbird.
- XNote++ adds sticky notes that you can associate with emails.
- Quick Translator to translate between more than 50 languages with a click or use of a hotkey.


You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!