Windows 10 reached EOS (end of support) on October 14, 2025. For more information, see this article.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Thunderbird message header pane

  • 3 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 59 views
  • Last reply by Rwing2

Thunderbird message header pane is so large that I can't read messages. The top 2/3rd of my screen has the list of messages, header bar, files, etc. The bottom 1/3 is for the actual email message, but the header takes up nearly half of that with just the "From", "To", and "Subject lines taking up more than half of that space. Depending on the text of the html message, sometimes I can only read one line at a time, which makes it difficult to actually comprehend a message while scrolling, particularly if it's a long message. I can't resize it to make it larger, though I can make it smaller. My eyesight isn't quite as good as it used to be so I use a larger font than I used to, ie: 12pt rather than 10pt, and that makes it worse. Any suggestions?

Thunderbird message header pane is so large that I can't read messages. The top 2/3rd of my screen has the list of messages, header bar, files, etc. The bottom 1/3 is for the actual email message, but the header takes up nearly half of that with just the "From", "To", and "Subject lines taking up more than half of that space. Depending on the text of the html message, sometimes I can only read one line at a time, which makes it difficult to actually comprehend a message while scrolling, particularly if it's a long message. I can't resize it to make it larger, though I can make it smaller. My eyesight isn't quite as good as it used to be so I use a larger font than I used to, ie: 12pt rather than 10pt, and that makes it worse. Any suggestions?
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

Install the very useful add-on "Compact Headers". https://services.addons.thunderbird.net/az/thunderbird/addon/compact-headers/ Instead of "Wide" view I'm using Classic" view (image)

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (3)

Chosen Solution

Install the very useful add-on "Compact Headers". https://services.addons.thunderbird.net/az/thunderbird/addon/compact-headers/ Instead of "Wide" view I'm using Classic" view (image)

View > Layout > Vertical view may work well for you too.

Thank you. The add-on did help. Now I can read it with the "wide" view, as well as the classic view.

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.