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Changed the size of the text in Thunderbird. Now my entire mail display takes up less than a quarter of an inch

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  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

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I tried to change the size of the text in Thunderbird and now my entire mail display takes up less than a quarter of an inch of display. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling it, and it is still the same. Is there a way to get rid of those settings and go back to the defaults without doing it inside the program? I have enclosed a screenshot of it. I love my Thunderbird and am lost without it. Please help. Someone. Anyone.

I tried to change the size of the text in Thunderbird and now my entire mail display takes up less than a quarter of an inch of display. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling it, and it is still the same. Is there a way to get rid of those settings and go back to the defaults without doing it inside the program? I have enclosed a screenshot of it. I love my Thunderbird and am lost without it. Please help. Someone. Anyone.
Attached screenshots

Modified by Wayne Mery

All Replies (4)

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Hopefully starting in safe mode will put Thunderbird in a workable state https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-mode-thunderbird#w_starting-thunderbird-in-troubleshoot-mode

Then ...

Check the Config Editor for this settings:

  • Settings > General
  • scroll to bottom and click on 'Config Editor' button

It opens in a new tab

  • In top search type: pixels
  • look for this line : layout.css.devPixelsPerPx
  • default is a negative number -1.0

It should not be in bold text, if bold text then it has been altered.

  • If you have anything else in that setting use the arrow icon on far right - click on it and the default is reset.

Another value to check is mail.uifontsize, what value do you see?

Please post your results

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Unfortunately, when I opened it in safe mode, this is what I got -

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I did another uninstall/reinstall and I thought it fixed it, but it opened it in my DuckDuckGo browser instead. The application itself is still very, very tiny.

Modified by Ande

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Sorry you having so much trouble.

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data and find your profile directory. Stop Thunderbird.

Save a copy of your prefs.js file.

With Thunderbird shut down, edit prefs.js and remove any lines you find with layout.css.devPixelsPerPx and mail.uifontsize

Restart Thunderbird.