Switch To Compact Headers In Thunderbird 3

The standard email header in the mail client Thunderbird 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.
Update: The extension is no longer compatible with recent versions of Thunderbird. You can check out Compact Headers (yes, same name) which offers similar functionality. End
Most Thunderbird users may not require some of the information and options displayed by default in the header area of the email that is displayed in the client.
This includes for example the information to whom the email was sent to or 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 and newer only and can reduce the size of the email header to one row.
Thunderbird 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. The other options are to only display the address and to link in subjects of RSS feeds which refers to Thunderbird's ability to display RSS feed contents.
Compact Header for Mozilla Thunderbird 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.
Update: The extension is fully compatible with all recent versions of the Thunderbird email client. It is no longer experimental and can be downloaded from Mozilla's official Thunderbird Extensions repository.
To install it in Thunderbird, do the following:
- Select Tools > Addons from the menu bar at the top.
- Click on the preferences icon next to search on the page.
- Select install add-on from file from the context menu that opens up.
- Browse to the folder you have downloaded the extension to and select it.
- Follow the extension installation dialog and restart Thunderbird in the end.






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!