A person might become dissatisfied and frustrated with Thunderbird because some functions do not work as one might expect without modification and because the program is … (emoñe’ẽve)
A person might become dissatisfied and frustrated with Thunderbird because some functions do not work as one might expect without modification and because the program is more complex (and customizable) than other e-mail apps. When I first tried using Thunderbird, I gave up on it quickly. Then I returned, learned more about how it works, and am now very satisfied with it.
I am not an expert, but I learned some things that may be useful to other people.
Please correct any inaccurate information and add to incomplete information.
My experience was with Thunderbird 128 on a Macintosh computer.
I suggest that you make these changes in the order in which they appear here.
MESSAGE FORMAT
Thunderbird uses an mbox format (there is more than one mbox format) for storing messages by default. It can also use the maildir (eml) format. Eml is better, at least in some ways. To use the eml format, one must change a setting before setting up accounts. The setting is in Thunderbird settings - General at the bottom. It is “Message Store Type for new accounts”. You may want to set it to “File per message (maildir)”.
A support article from 2019 warns users about this format:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/maildir-thunderbird
But some users report that it was working well as early as 2016:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/thunderbird-from-mbox-to-maildir.389599/
As of December 2024, there is no warning within Thunderbird. This option is presented as a standard feature. I do not know if using the format causes any problems. A list of known bugs is here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?classification=Client%20Software&classification=Components&f1=short_desc&f2=OP&f3=short_desc&o1=nowordssubstr&o3=anywordssubstr&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird&resolution=---&short_desc=maildir&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr
If you set up accounts before making this change, then you will want to create a new profile and make the change there before setting up accounts. The process for creating a new profile starts with Help - Troubleshooting information - about:profiles.
I have not been able to get messages in local folders stored in the maildir/eml format. I do not know if that is possible. Does anyone know if it is?
THREADED CONVERSATIONS
Thunderbird threads conversations by default. Many people don’t want threaded conversation. There are several things one can do to prevent and change threaded conversations.
First, go to Settings - General - Config Editor. Search for mailnews.default_view_flags and change the setting to 0. This setting should change the default view.
If threaded conversations do appear, there are at least two ways to change them to unthreaded.
1) View - Sort by - Unthreaded affects the current message list.
2) Copy your preferred message list settings from one list to another. At the far right of the column headers in every message list, there is a button to “Select columns to display”. Click on it. At the bottom of the list that appears, there is a command to “Apply current view to …” If you have folders with “children” folders, you can apply your preference of no threads to the parent and the children in one step.
Official documentation on threading is here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thunderbird
SET UP ACCOUNTS
I have included this step mostly so that you can see what I suggest that you do before and after setting up accounts.
EXCHANGE/OFFICE 365/MICROSOFT 365 ACCOUNTS
If you have an Exchange/Office 365/Microsoft 365 account, Thunderbird will set it up as an IMAP account. If you want to use it as an Exchange account, you need an add-on. “OWL for Exchange” is the most popular one. There is at least one other add-on that does the same things. I do not know how well they work. I chose not to install “OWL for Exchange” because it seemed to require more access than I was comfortable granting.
When you use an Exchange account as an IMAP account, you do not have to specify a location for sent messages. They will be saved in the “Sent Items” folder, not the “Sent“ folder. If you specify a folder in account settings - Copies & Folders, you will have duplicates.
Some people that said that there are problems with these different sent mail folders because of how Apple Mail handles them, at least on the iPhone. But Apple seems to handle these accounts properly as Exchange/Office 365/ Microsoft 365 accounts on both the iPhone and the Mac, and it seems to use the proper folders. So I suspect that the issue has to do with Thunderbird setting up these accounts as IMAP accounts.
To ensure that all e-mail apps that you use to access your Exchange account store deleted messages in the same place, I think you want to go to account settings, server settings, and have deleted messages saved in “Deleted Items”.
Native support for Exchange mail functions (only mail) is under development.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Exchange
IMPORT LOCAL FOLDERS
You may have messages stored in local folders in another e-mail app. The easiest way to get them into Thunderbird is 1) to export them in mbox format (or just copy the mbox folders if the messages are already stored in an mbox format) and 2) put the mbox folders (without file extensions and index files) into the folder (directory) Profiles/[your profile]/Mail/Local Folders.
On the Macintosh, the Profiles folder is in ~/Library/Thunderbird.
“~” indicates the user, as opposed to the system. So the full path is: Macintosh HD/Users/[your computer account name]/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/[your profile]/Mail/Local Folders.
MESSAGE LIST WINDOW SETTINGS
Once you have your columns set as you want them, you can use the next-to-last option in “Select columns to display” to copy your settings to other message list windows.
To set the default sort column and sort order, use the configuration editor (Settings - General - Config Editor …”.) To get the sort order typical of e-mail apps, descending by date, set mailnews.default_sort_type to 18 (date) and mailnews.default_sort_order to 2.
More information about sorting options is here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1432391
PREFERRED FONTS
To set your preferred fonts, you probably must set them in two or three places. One of them is easy to miss.
Go to Settings - General - Language & Appearance. Set your preferences for “Fonts & Colors” there.
Then click on “Advanced …”. In the dialog window that appears next, you probably have to set your preferences in two places: under your main writing system, e.g., “Latin” and under “Other Writing Systems”.
COMPOSE WINDOW
The header layout in the compose window has wasted space and crunched headings that annoyed me. If these things annoy you, learn how to correct it here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1477069
I set the left margin to -60px.
DASHED LINES BETWEEN MESSAGE AND SIGNATURE
You can remove these dashed lines by going to the configuration editor (Settings - General - Config Editor …”) and setting mail.identity.default.suppress_signature_separator to true.
WORD WRAP IN THE COMPOSE WINDOW
To get better word wrapping in the compose window, use the configuration editor to set mailnews.wraplength to 0. This may be useful only for plain-text messages. I don’t know.
Using the Edit - Rewrap command (with a shortcut) is useful sometimes too.
SEND PROGRESS INDICATOR WINDOW
The window that pops up after you give a command to send a message may annoy you. You can disable it using the configuration editor (Settings - General - Config Editor) by setting mailnews.show_send_progress to false.
The compose window will still remain visible until the message is sent. There is a progress indicator at the bottom of that window that makes the pop-up window redundant.
You can set Thunderbird to “send in the background” so that the compose window disappears after the “send” command. Do this by setting mailnews.sendInBackground to true and offline.send.unsent_messages to 1. There are some trade-offs in this approach. See here for more information:
https://www.summet.com/blog/2015/11/16/making-thunderbird-send-messages-in-the-background-like-outlook/
I have decided not to use this approach because it puts a message in the outbox of the Local Folders account and never seems to send it unless I give it the File - Send Unsent Messages command.
Does someone know how to have messages sent in the background but immediately and without intervention?
NOT ALL IMAP FOLDERS APPEAR
Which IMAP folders appear in an account depends on 1) whether or not the account is set to show all folders or only subscribed folders, and 2) which folders are subscribed to.
The account-level setting for showing all or only subscribed folders is under account settings: Server Settings - Advanced.
If you set Thunderbird to show only subscribed folders, then right-click on each account name in the folder pane, select “Subscribe …”, and check the folders that you want to subscribe to. You will have to check this setting every time you create a new IMAP folder.
GLOBAL SEARCH
Some people are frustrated by global search and conclude quickly that it does not work. In my limited experience, it works fine. But one must understand that searching is set on a folder-by-folder basis. Right-click on a folder, select “Properties”, and make sure that the folders you want to search are set to be searched. I believe that “Trash” is not set to be searched by default.
