I downloaded and ran Seabird's email client, and I can change colors with mouse clicks rather than having to type in a color name or number. I therefore have concluded that this problem must be a bug in Thunderbird. Unfortunately, switching to Seabird is not a real option since it is so buggy and unusable. Frankly I was surprised to get as far with it as I did!

The color picker does seem to have some odd behavior, even on Windows. In the attached picture, I have opened the Text color dialog. Clicking the 'Choose a color' bar opens the Color window. If I first click any color in the Basic colors matrix, except black or white, I can then click on any color on the right, and move the luminosity slider up or down. If black or white are selected, you can still choose any color, but the luminosity slider must not be at the top or bottom.

This may not help at all with OS X, since TB now uses the system color picker.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1584772

Make your issue known here... why they broke this and made it harder to select a color baffles me!

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1584772

Atomic Fusion said

I can't use my mouse click to choose a color, to assign to an attribute like text or backgrounds. If I go into the color requestor, as shown in the pic, and type a color, the change will happen. But I'm limited to some pretty basic colors rather than the whole gamut of colors that I can choose from any of the palettes available. This problem seems to have popped up a few versions of Thunderbird ago. I'm now using 68.3.0, and I keep hoping it will get fixed. I have created new user profiles in OS X. I have re-installed the operating system, both High Sierra and Catalina. So I think that I've routed out the possibility that its a system setting. Can anybody else duplicate my problem or am I just the weird one out?

Easily Solved!!! (it IS a system setting ... you just need to know where to LOOK for it.)

Look carefully at the Color Chooser panel in your Screenshot. Click on the little color blob at the top (just under the Close Button) to switch to the "Good" color pallet - you have the Crayons Color selector chosen.

(See MY Screenshots)

Try clicking on the different icons at the top of the Color Chooser until you find one you like better than "Crayons", OK? ALL of the color pallets are still in there ... and the one I highlighted in MY Screenshot is the one you have been looking for. (I'm on High Sierra on a Mac ... I KNOW Macintosh & Thunderbird.)

Click this one and problem is SOLVED. Then you get THIS Color Chooser (which even has an Eyedropper to sample screen colors EXACTLY):

I'm Using Thunderbird 68.5.0 / Mac OS Mojave 10.14.

I can select and make palettes in the color picker. However, it does not affect the color choice at all in Thunderbird. So I need to enter each code manually which is not sustainable or practical. (It used to work for years until I guess they changed things up recently)

Does anyone else have a color picker that does not actually work for choosing color in Thunderbird.

AGW said

I'm Using Thunderbird 68.5.0 / Mac OS Mojave 10.14. I can select and make palettes in the color picker. However, it does not affect the color choice at all in Thunderbird. So I need to enter each code manually which is not sustainable or practical. (It used to work for years until I guess they changed things up recently) Does anyone else have a color picker that does not actually work for choosing color in Thunderbird.

Exact same problem here, except I'm on Mac OS 10.15.2.

I get the color picker, but have to enter color number manually for EVERY instance I want to change color. Totally unusable.

A couple days ago I downloaded a new version of SeaMonkey, and the version operates without any bugs (so far) and is reliable enough for me to switch my email client over to it, simply so I can choose colors in my emails with my mouse click rather than having to type the code for the color in.

The version of SeaMonkey that I have downloaded is 2.53.1 and since all my mail is imap I did not have to move any setting files over from my Thunderbird profile, in order to preserve all the email in all my boxes.

Anyway, if SeaMonkey's updates remain stable in the future I guess it is my preferred client now. The only hiccup I ran into was assigning the correct information for the servers, which I copied from Thunderbird's settings before removing the application from my hard drive.

Not having the ability to change colors and create columns and edit them that was so prevalent with Netscape and on through Thunderbird and all of Mozilla's products has always been a deal breaker for me. Thankfully, since Thunderbird is having bugs that apparently aren't going to be addressed any time soon, the Mozilla community provide lots of alternative to be able to keep the same functionality that has existed FOR YEARS AND YEARS.

Changing color picker code did nothing. This IS the MOST disrespectful thing Mozilla has ever done to us! Absolutely NO CHARM ananda