Enable proper word wrapping in Thunderbird using the Toggle Line Wrap extension

Ashwin
Mar 17, 2021
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Do you write long mails? Most users do, sometimes at least. It can be detailed instructions for someone, collaborative mails between you and your colleagues, or just a letter of correspondence. As a Thunderbird user, you may have experienced this issue, when you write a message and the sentences get longer, the mail ends up taking the screen space from one end of the compose window to the other.

word wrapping in Thunderbird

And you'll be moving your head from side-to-side as if you were watching a Tennis match, just to keep checking the mail contents. This is particularly annoying while working on large screen monitors. Text editors suffer from this issue as well, but they have a simple solution for it readily available, word wrap. Toggle Line Wrap is an extension for Thunderbird that adds support for word wrap in your messages.

Enable proper word wrapping in Thunderbird using the Toggle Line Wrap extension

Install the extension, and click on the Write button on the mail client's toolbar. The message compose window should open as usual, but you will see a new option in the top right-corner of the window, that is labeled "Line Wrap".

modify advanced settings in Thunderbird

Now, there is a good chance that the Line Wrap button may be greyed out for you. Don't worry about it, you can get it working in a jiffy. Go to Thunderbird's options page, stay on the General tab, and scroll down to the bottom. Click on the button that says Config Editor, it's similar to Firefox's about:config page. Accept the disclaimer, and on the next screen, type "mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", and set the preference's boolean value to false. Now, go back to the compose window, and the Line Wrap button should be clickable.

mail news settings in Thunderbird

When it is toggled, the text content of your mails should stick to the left side of the window, which makes it easier to read without straining yourself. If you have disabled Line Wrap, a badge appears on the button to indicate that it is "off". You may Toggle Line Wrap quickly by using the hotkey, Ctrl + Shift + W.

word wrapping in Thunderbird fixed

There are a few limitations in Toggle Line Wrap. Firstly, the line wrapping only works in the message composer, i.e., you cannot toggle it for messages that are in your Inbox, Sent folders. This is kind of a let down, but at least you have it for writing mails.

word wrapping in Thunderbird maximized mode

The other drawback is that the mail extension only supports the plain text format. What this means is that you will have to disable the "Compose messages in HTML format" option, under your email account's setting. And if you have multiple accounts, you'll need to toggle the option for each of those.

The add-on has a single option that you can modify, and it enables the line wrapping behavior by default for all mails that you compose. If you'd rather have manual control over this, disable the option, and use the toolbar button or the hotkey whenever you want to invoke its functionality.

Toggle Line Wrap is an open source plugin. It is a mail extension that is a replacement for Toggle Word Wrap, also from the same developer.

Summary
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Author Rating
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2.5 based on 45 votes
Software Name
Toggle Line Wrap
Operating System
Thunderbird
Software Category
Productivity
Price
Free
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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on March 18, 2021 at 8:24 am
    Reply

    I’d like to add my voice to those who see the new redesign is more bad than good.

    Also,
    1. Come on, Martin. You know your audience!
    2. You could have announce the intent to change and give the users a chance for feedback on a preview.
    3. Latest Posts (https://www.ghacks.net/latest-posts/) doesn’t contain the latest posts!
    4. White on orange is “on brand”! but it hurts the eye! At least, the current shades.
    5. No thumbnails!
    6. Even disregarding all these, I’d still vote for the calmer old design.

  2. Anonymous said on March 18, 2021 at 5:40 am
    Reply

    the new design is crap in the way that the overview of posts is lacking. it sucks ergonomically. Frankly, first impression was the site got hacked, huge wasted orange space for just 3 entries.

    1. Jane Doe said on March 18, 2021 at 9:00 am
      Reply

      Agreed, I might stop visiting this website if they don’t realize they messed up sooner rather than later.

      1. Design Team said on March 18, 2021 at 12:08 pm
        Reply

        Your feedback is very appreciated and we will make changes as soon as we can!

  3. owl said on March 18, 2021 at 3:43 am
    Reply

    It’s just my method:
    Based on security measures, I think that the use of mail clients and Office Suite etc should be done “offline” as much as possible. In other words, in this case, “Create with Notepad++ and copy and paste it to [Write-Thunderbird]”.

  4. Jack said on March 18, 2021 at 2:17 am
    Reply

    Since its about the information perhaps making the opening page a little more filled up with such would make sense. 6-7 on each section

  5. Graham said on March 17, 2021 at 8:20 pm
    Reply

    A little criticism for your newly redesign website…
    Can you have MORE than just 3 of the latest posts on the main page? I feel it’s not enough.
    Thank you.

    1. Anonymous said on March 18, 2021 at 2:07 am
      Reply

      you can use this url to open the site: https://www.ghacks.net/?s=
      very bad redesign

      1. TechnoViking said on March 18, 2021 at 2:31 pm
        Reply

        Thanks! This is great.

      2. Corky said on March 18, 2021 at 11:44 am
        Reply

        Thanks for that, IDK how you came across it but that’s saved me searching around for another site to use, i guess card style website design is seen as trendy but it’s blooming awful IMO.

        When i got to a site i want to see things in chronological order, not a mix of subjects all with their own time order, why would i be interested in ‘news’ from 3 months ago on a specific subject when i can find news from 3 months ago by myself.

    2. TechnoViking said on March 17, 2021 at 11:20 pm
      Reply

      This.

      Or in addition to breaking the stories into categories (e.g. Windows, Linux, Software, Firefox etc) have an additional category called “All” which lists all the stories in new to old date format like the old website.

      That way minimal changes to the new look website will have to be made and I can get all my posts in one spot.

  6. Anonymous said on March 17, 2021 at 4:43 pm
    Reply

    Or you could not maximise the window.

    1. Ray said on March 17, 2021 at 9:20 pm
      Reply

      This.

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