Thunderbird Community Forum

I've been a Netscape-based user for almost as long as home IT has been around. Am attempting to finally take the plunge and get away from the Seamonkey Suite to use just Thunderbird for emails, and the wife would like some of the same viewing pane colors to be the same as she's used to.

Following assorted online suggestions for enabling the use of 'userChrome.css' to change the background colors of folderPane, threadPane and messagePane aren't having any effect. I've:

• Set 'toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets' to TRUE
• Created 'chrome' folder and specimen .CSS file
• Added color values for the above properties
• Restarted TBird after each setting change attempt, but no views are changing

I've also attempted to make heads/tails out of guidance for using Debugging Tools to inspect elements to find/verify the current names of properties that I want to change, but have not been able to work that out.

I'm not a complete IT novice--I am a 20-yr sysadmin, not a developer. I can write PowerShell, but no HTML experience. Take pity on an old man?

Hi,

I have been using Thunderbird as my preferred email client since around 2004 on Linux, macOS and Windows.

I am current running Thunderbird 150.0.2 64-bit on macOS Tahoe 26.5 ( Intel ).

When I attempt to create a new 'Folder' or 'Sub Folder' on either an iMAP account or, more importantly, my 'Local Folder' the displayed dialogue box is sized incorrectly and I am unable to complete the action.

Specifically I can type into the 'Name' text box and see the 'Create as a subfolder of" drop down dialogue but the two buttons below are barely visible and I cannot select either with my mouse. Nor can I resize the dialogue box itself [ make larger ] to enable to be select either button.

I can use the <TAB> key to cycle thorough the various items and the <RETURN> key to select an option.

I have attached a sample image of the issue.

Thanks.

I can't turn off 'threading' of messages. I hate that feature. I'll do my own damn 'threading'. Now the 'search' function is useless. Help me turn off 'threading' I run Thunderbird which I like, on my HP Windows 11 laptop.

"Threading" cannot be 'unchecked' in the dropdown menu.

When I try and open any link on an email I get an error message: "This file does not have an app associated with it to perform this action. Please install an app or if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Settings page". This occurred from start up this morning.

Bonjour, Je vous promets que je vous fais un don dès que vous aurez mis fin à votre publicité mensongère à propos des Dossier récents : ils ne sont jamais triés par ordre alphabétique, quelque soit le paramétrage demandé.

Since some time my standard number of print copies in Thunderbird has changed from 1 into 2. I have to adapt this number each time I print. How can I change this back?

I spend the last hour or so in sheer panic and doubting my sanitiy as an email I was just reading disappeared from every mailbox I have here (I have 8 mailboxes in Thunderbird) . Also for whatever reason search is missing from the title bar.

The email was "archived" by Thunderbird inthe "Local Folders" I never use local folders as local folders is silly in 2026 imo. I have my own mailserver which is perfectly save and backuped and stuf I don't need yet another location were mail can hide.

Anyway that was a bit of a rant. This would not have happend if this sille ¨Local Folders" didn´t exist at all. But I seem unable to get rid of it.

How do I remove ¨Local Folders" from Thunderbird?

Subject: Persistent Column and Folder Layout Issues — Not Being Saved Between Sessions

This is a follow-up to my previous support requests regarding two ongoing problems that significantly impact daily usability.

Column Settings I manage multiple accounts, and my preferred column layout is: Starred, Read Status, Attachment, Subject, From, and Date/Time. I do not use Threads, Correspondents, or Spam Status columns. Despite setting these preferences repeatedly, Thunderbird fails to retain them. Every day I must spend time reconfiguring columns across some or all of my accounts — the state varies unpredictably from one session to the next. This is a persistent, daily frustration that costs meaningful time. Most other major email clients save and reliably maintain column preferences. I'd expect Thunderbird to do the same.

Folder Panel Layout Two problems occur regularly when Thunderbird loads:

Folder order — Standard system folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, All Mail, Trash, Spam) should appear at the top of each account. Instead, Sent, All Mail, Trash, and/or Spam are frequently scattered among custom folders, with no apparent consistency.

Folder expansion — Most or all folders load in an expanded state, exposing every nested sub-folder regardless of whether they contain unread mail. This creates unnecessary visual clutter and requires manual collapsing each session.

Again, this behavior is uncommon in other widely-used email clients. Summary These are not one-time glitches — they recur daily and represent a significant usability gap. I'd appreciate confirmation that these are known issues being tracked, or guidance on a reliable fix. Reformatting the interface every morning is not a reasonable expectation for users.

We're planning to switch from Outlook to Thunderbird, but we have a hard time in harmonizing font sizes on text and signature. One of the issues is that fonts can be set to textual values tiny, small, medium, etc. w/o knowing what it corresponds to in pt. But lets explain what we tried so far: - Under Settings/ General / Language&Fonts, we defined Calibri 12 as default, what we repeated under Advanced for 'Latin' & 'Other Writing Fonts' - Under Settings / Composition, we defined Calibri / Medium for the HTML Style - The HTML-signature is defined using the Calibri 12 font But when creating a new message w/ these settings, the result is terrible as you can see in the example: disregard the fonts' color, just look at the font sizes.

Is there any simple solution?

All my read emails are showing on the top bar of my thunderbird. I have to scroll left past multipee tabs to get to my inbox. This just started recently and at the same time email replies started showing up under the original. can I turn these features off.

Currently using TB 153.0, Win 11 on desktop PC.

In past versions there was a progress bar on right end of the status line, along bottom edge of the screen, that showed progress while TB was compacting folders. That bar hasn't been visible in last few updates.

When prompted today, I allowed TB to start compacting. I'd permanently deleted a really big bunch of old emails in last few days, so probably a lot of space that could be recovered. I kept waiting and waiting and waiting, but without the progress I had no idea if TB was busy or possibly frozen. So I just left it alone. When I came back and tried to manually start compacting, it immediately said "Done, 0K saved". So it had obviously done the compacting.

If it's an option, how do I enable that progress bar? If not currently available, please consider restoring it in future TB updates. I -for one- think it's a very useful feature.

THX!

Hello,

I followed the steps to use the vCard option as a Email Signature.

When creating a new email the vCard Signature is not appearing.

Please Advise,

Rodney

I want to send an email to an address book list. I've searched for how to do it, and a "Write" button is needed but I do not have one. I tried right c,licking on the upper bar and chose customise. I see various buttons to add including "Write", but nothing I do adds it.

When I open something in an email in Thunderbird I also get an extra new tab along with the tab for what I am wanting. If I don't delete this new tab, when I try to return to my email page it takes me to my Windows 11 home page. It only happens when I use Thunderbird and is very annoying. What do I need to do to resolve this issue.

I was a satisfied user of the Thunderbird e-mail client. I especially enjoyed the ability to toggle into darkmode when browsing and reading my e-mail. The previous toggle I used to activate that feature is missing, and I cannot locate a work around to turn it back on. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Until recently, Folder Panes were visible at all times, but after the most recent update, they only appear when I am on a folder and are not visible when I am on a message. I have activated Views/Folders/Folder Pane Header, but that does not solve the problem.

Shortly after my most recent update, my Sent folder became corrupted. Rather than containing recently sent messages, it contained older messages from another folder, and when I send a new message now, it is not added to the Sent folder. When I tried to send a message, I received an error notification indicating that the message could not be archived because the folder did not have enough memory. I deleted everything from the Sent folder and then compressed it, but that did not solve the issue. I then closed Thunderbird, manually deleted the Sent folder from Mail/Local Folders; the Sent file was regenerated when I started the program again but with the same issue. I then backed up my profile, removed Thunderbird and reinstalled it, and then copied my profile over without the Sent folder. But when I opened the program, the issue still persisted.

The folder properties for the Sent folder indicates:

Name: Sent Location: mailbox://nobody@Local Folders/Out -- 148 November-Dec 2022

The location is obviously incorrect as it does not point to the Sent folder, but rather to another folder I use to store older message. I see no way to change the location, and the Repair Folder option does not solve the issue.

I would be very grateful for any suggestions.