35+ Extensions for Thunderbird Users

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 6, 2007
Updated • Jul 28, 2013
Email, Thunderbird
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2

Thunderbird, the email client from the Mozilla team, was in the news just a few days ago with the announcement that Thunderbird will receive an independent organizational place at Mozilla allowing the Thunderbird community to determine its own destiny.

With the level of dedication put forward by the developers of Thunderbird and users it will definitely be the right move. In the meantime, here are more than 45 extensions for Thunderbird that extend the functionality of the email client, add missing features, or provide security enhancements to the program.

Note: Before you start to download any extensions make sure you take a look at the compatibility information to make sure the add-on is still compatible with your version of Thunderbird.

Appearance:

Contacts Sidebar - displays the address book in the sidebar of Thunderbird. You can toggle the display with the F4 key to display or hide it.

Menu Icons Plus - adds icons to the menus of Firefox.

Flatstyle - changes the look and feel of the menus and toolbars to resemble Microsoft Office XP

Minimize to tray - moves Thunderbird from the task bar into the system tray.

Tiny Menu - save space by compacting the menu.

Composing:

Auto Zip Attachments - zips attachments automatically before sending the mail.

Clippings - Save frequently used texts to prevent typing the same texts over and over again. You can paste the text into emails whenever you need to.

Copy Plain Text - Copies texts without formatting. You can alternatively use the Ctrl-Shift-V shortcut to do so.

Nested Quote Remover - removes nested quotes automatically when replying.

Signature Switch - switch signatures with ease.

Fun:

Bork Bork Bork - Feeoo veb peges oor meeel es spukee by zee Svedeesh Cheff.

Leet Key - 7r4n5f0rm5 0r 3n(0d35 53|3(73d 73x7 1n70 |337 5p34k 4nd d1ff3r3n7 3n(ryp710n5.

Smilie Inserter - insert smilies in messages.

Functionality

Addressbooks Synchronizer - synchronized selected address books with local, ftp, imap or webdav books.

Display Quota - displays IMAP quota and warns when a limit is reached.

Fox Clocks - keep an eye on the time around the world.

Lightning - a calendar for Thunderbird.

Locale Switcher - lets you switch the locale setting with ease.

Quick Note - write down quick notes (phone numbers for instance)

Provider for Google Calendar - sync data between Lightning / Sunbird and Google Calendar. Requires Lightning to be installed as well.

Remove Duplicate Messages - scans for and removes duplicated messages.

TB Properties - adds a Properties function to display more information about images and links.

Thunderbrowse - allows you to view websites in Thunderbird instead of your default web client.

[UN]Read - adds a button and shortcut that switches between view all / view unread mode quickly.

Update Notifier - notifies the user whenever an update for an extension or theme is available.

Reading:

Change - currency converter for 36 currencies. Just double-click on any numeric amount in emails to display the value in another currency.

Dictionary Search - look up a selected word.

GDirections - Uses Google and Yahoo maps to find directions from one of several locations that you have addded to the location of the selected text.

Image Zoom - adds the ability to zoom into images. Useful if images are embedded in emails.

Maximize Message Pane - Collapses thread pane to maximize the message pane.

Quick Folders - bookmark mail folders for faster access.

Quote Colors - assigns colors to quotes depending on the quote level so that they are easier to distinguish.

Open Long Url - makes it possible to open multi-line urls.

Text Size Toolbar - adds buttons to the toolbar which can increase and decrease text size.

Track Packages - track packages from various services such as UPS, Fedex and DHL with a right-click.

Security:

Enigmail - adds flexible and easy to install OpenPGP functionality to Thunderbird.

Sender Verification Extension - reports if the sender in the From header was the actual sender of the email when possible.

Thunder Plunger - removes traces of accounts that have been deleted in Thunderbird.

Xpunge - Compacts mail folders which gets rid of already deleted emails that are still stored in those folders unless compacted.

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Comments

  1. JMGG said on January 19, 2012 at 8:25 am
    Reply

    You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?

    1. BalaC said on January 19, 2012 at 9:42 am
      Reply

      I think its thunderbird

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on January 19, 2012 at 10:15 am
      Reply

      It is Mozilla Thunderbird.

  2. Salaam said on September 24, 2012 at 9:52 pm
    Reply

    Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.

  3. Claud said on December 19, 2012 at 2:08 am
    Reply

    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.

    1. Lynda said on February 12, 2013 at 3:37 pm
      Reply

      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!!!!

    2. Chad said on November 20, 2018 at 4:24 pm
      Reply

      Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…

    3. Ivan X said on January 21, 2021 at 4:50 pm
      Reply

      Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.

  4. Andrew said on October 26, 2013 at 7:06 am
    Reply

    This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)

  5. Charles said on December 7, 2013 at 7:23 pm
    Reply

    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.

  6. garth said on November 7, 2014 at 7:13 pm
    Reply

    You are a god – thank you!

  7. Faisal said on February 9, 2015 at 10:09 am
    Reply

    thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)

  8. Simon said on March 24, 2015 at 11:36 pm
    Reply

    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

  9. Olu said on April 14, 2015 at 1:35 pm
    Reply

    Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
    Thank you

  10. Coenig said on July 23, 2015 at 7:36 am
    Reply

    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 :-)

  11. Fali said on January 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
    Reply

    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.

    1. MIki said on January 10, 2019 at 11:54 am
      Reply

      I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!

  12. Christina said on January 20, 2016 at 6:14 pm
    Reply

    Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007

  13. Oz said on July 22, 2016 at 3:20 pm
    Reply

    Great tip! Thanks!

  14. Tracy said on September 1, 2016 at 4:48 pm
    Reply

    Worked for me, too – thank you!!!

  15. shawn said on September 9, 2016 at 10:25 am
    Reply

    It’s Worked for me, too
    thank you very much!

  16. Jari said on October 31, 2016 at 11:53 am
    Reply

    I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!

  17. Michel H said on November 30, 2016 at 11:08 pm
    Reply

    Thank you so much. Solved!
    Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
    Thank you again. M

  18. Ziad Bitar said on January 9, 2017 at 2:00 am
    Reply

    This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.

    Thanks.

  19. Anonymous said on February 15, 2017 at 5:24 pm
    Reply

    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.

  20. Rochelle said on March 6, 2017 at 11:59 am
    Reply

    Thank you, this worked !!!!

  21. anom1234 said on May 20, 2018 at 11:20 pm
    Reply

    Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!

  22. JC said on October 12, 2020 at 2:14 pm
    Reply

    Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!

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