Customizing and Using Mozilla Thunderbird 3
This document will cover the most popular features and settings in Mozilla Thunderbird 3. If you have not already installed and configured it for your Lehigh e-mail, follow these setup instructions, then return to this page for customization and usage tips.
If you've upgraded from a previous version, you will be presented with the Migration Assistant. Please follow the LTS recommended settings. You can open the Assistant at any time by clicking Help > Migration Assistant.
What's new in Thunderbird 3 ?
More features
You can add or delete buttons to your Toolbar by using the Customize feature. Click View > Toolbars > Customize. Drag and drop icons into or out of the Toolbar as desired, then click OK.
Thunderbird allows you to switch between five folder "views": All (default), Unread (containing unread emails), Favorites (frequently used folders you define), Recent (email folders recently visited) and Unified (grouped messages from multiple accounts).
To toggle between these folder views, click the left or right arrows or click View > Folders > All/Unread/Favorites/Recent/Unified.. The list of 15 recently used folders (across all accounts) is updated when Thunderbird is closed and restarted.
How does a folder become a Favorite? Unlike Recent Folders, which are determined by your viewing history, Favorite Folders are set by the user. To make a folder a Favorite, right-click the folder name and click Favorite Folder. To remove it as a favorite, right-click again and click Favorite Folder to remove the checkmark. Your Inbox is a Favorite Folder by default.
What are Unified folders? Unified folders group messages from multiple accounts. For example, if you have two Lehigh accounts (a personal one and one for your department), plus a Gmail account, Unified view groups together all Inboxes, Sent and Trash and Local folders for those accounts.
Mail notification pop-ups contain information such as the subject, sender and message preview text of new messages as they arrive.
If you don't want to be notified when new mail has arrived, click Tools > Options > General. Uncheck either or both boxes for "Show an alert" or "Play a sound." Then click OK. Note: Even if you uncheck both boxes, Thunderbird will still display the small envelope icon 
in the lower right of your screen.
The list of messages appears in the top right-hand panel. When you click once on a message it displays in the bottom right-hand panel. New feature: Double-click a message to display it in a new tab.
To change the message view layout, click View > Layout, and choose either Classic, Wide, or Vertical View.
New feature: By default, Thunderbird 3 uses the Message Button Toolbar for message handling.
You can reply to, forward, archive, junk or delete messages using the buttons located in the header of each mail message, rather than at the top of the mail window.
If you prefer to use the top-located toolbar buttons, launch the Migration Assistant (Help > Migration Assistant) and choose "Keep your original toolbar buttons" (3rd screen).
In previous versions of Thunderbird, whenever you sent or received a message, your email address would appear for either From: or To:. In this version, your address is replaced with the word "You." If you prefer to see your email address, click Tools > Options > Advanced. On the Reading & Display tab, remove the check mark next to "Show only display name for people in my address book."
Attachments are listed beneath your mail message. To save an attachment, right-click on its name and choose Save As. (To open it, either double click it, or right-click and choose Open). If you receive more than one attachment and you want to save them all at once to the same location, right-click on any one file and choose Save All.
Thunderbird offers two options for handling attachments, Delete and Detach. Both options should help users minimize disk quota overages by permitting the removal of attachments, but allowing the message to stay in its original state, sans attachment. There are important differences between the options. Use care in your selection.
Use Delete when you either have no need for the attachment, or have already used the Save As feature to save the file outside of your email. Right-click an attachment, then click Delete. You will need to confirm that you want to permanently delete the attachment(s) from the message. You will never be able to retrieve the deleted attachment again, so use caution here (or simply save the attachment elsewhere first).
After you confirm deletion, notice what happens in your Inbox. You'll see that the message is duplicated, but the file size is much smaller in the duplicate message because now the attachment is gone.
When you check mail again, or close and re-open Thunderbird, the original message with its attachment is gone, replaced only by the new, smaller message that shows two files have been deleted (denoted by
"Deleted:filename")
Right-click an attachment and choose Detach. You will be prompted to save the attachment to some folder location. The My Documents folder is recommended.
You will need to confirm that you want to permanently delete the attachment(s) from the message.
Again, after you confirm deletion, notice what happens in your Inbox. You'll see that the message is duplicated, but the file size is much
smaller in the duplicate message because now the attachment is gone (43k vs 2k).
When you check mail again, or close and re-open Thunderbird, the original message with its attachment is gone, replaced only by the new, smaller message that shows what appears to be the attachment.However, if you double-click the attachment, Thunderbird will attempt to open it at the location where you saved it when you detached it.
If you encounter this problem, simply search for the file in the location you moved it to. Or, use the Windows Explorer Search function (right-click the Start button, left-click Search) to locate the file by its name, which will be noted in the email message.
By default, Thunderbird blocks remote images and other content in messages from people you don't know. This protects your privacy because spammers can use remote content to detect if and when you've viewed a message from them, and thus to verify your e-mail address and send you more spam.
When you receive a message with remote images, Thunderbird will display an alert stating that remote images have been blocked, and the images in the message body will be replaced with simple place-holders (red dot in empty white box). If you want to view the remote images -- for example, if you subscribe to an e-mail newsletter that regularly includes remote images (as in below example) -- click the Load Images button that appears to the right of the alert message.
By default, Thunderbird has a built-in scam and phishing sensor to help protect users from email scams. This is a message Thunderbird thinks is a scam. If you recognize a message as legitimate, click the Not a Scam button to train Thunderbird that this message is OK and not to mark future messages from this source as a potential scam.
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Clicking any one of the column headings will sort messages by that characteristic (Sender, for example). Clicking once more reverses the sort order.
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To add or remove headings, click the square icon at the far right end of the header list |
More about the Junk feature: Thunderbird includes a built-in junk filter that attempts to determine whether or not a message is junk (such as spam). Lehigh already filters all incoming mail and determines whether or not a message is spam, and tags it as such if the message meets certain criteria. You do not need to "train" Thunderbird to tag junk mail, so you do not need to display this characteristic in your message list. For more on Lehigh spam filtering, see http://www.lehigh.edu/helpdesk/faq/qa/spamassassin.shtml
Sorting by thread: On the left side of the message list there is a Thread header 
(unless you uncheck that characteristic) that lets you sort your messages by threads, so you can follow all the messages in a particular email exchange in order. This is not the same as sorting by Subject. Sorting by thread will include all messages in an exchange, even if a person changes the Subject heading at some point in the exchange(s). In this example, sorting strictly by Subject would have yielded one less message in the sorting of this exchange.
Sort by group: For users who want to sort messages by date and want them grouped by periods of time, click View > Sort by > Grouped by sort G, or more simply, press G on the keyboard. Notice how the messages appear in categories Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Two Weeks Ago, and Old Mail. Click the [+] sign to expand a group of messages; click the [-] sign to collapse the group. Some users find themselves in this mail sort accidentally because they've pressed the letter G by mistake. To unsort messages by group, click on the column heading you want to sort by, such as Date.
New feature: Quick Filter Toolbar
The Quick Filter Toolbar lets you filter your email faster. Start typing words in the Quick Filter search box and the results are displayed instantly.
Or you can filter your email by New Messages, Tags, and people in your Address Book.
To search for one or more email messages within your email folders, right-click on YourUserID@lehigh.edu at the top of your folder list, and left-click Search. Or, click Edit > Find > Search Messages.
Choose whether to search for messages that match all or any of your search criteria. Click the [+] button to add multiple search terms/qualifiers. When you click Search, the search will produce results in the bottom of the window. Double-click on them to view, or select them and file or delete them. In this example, messages must match two criteria. There are likely other "firewall" messages in the mail account, but this search was limited to only the bulletins that were sent by a certain person.
Saving your searches: Thunderbird allows you to create Saved Search folders. A Saved Search folder looks like a regular mail folder but when you click on it, it runs a search according to criteria that you've set previously and it displays a list of messages that match those criteria. For example, you could create a Saved Search folder that lists all the messages received from a certain person over the past 30 days, even if those messages are stored in different folders and subfolders. For comprehensive instructions on creating and modifying saved searches, see the Mozilla FAQ article on saved searches.
You can color-code your mail using tags. In addition to making them more visible, you can use the View feature to quickly sort messages by those that are tagged a certain way. If you don't have a View button in your toolbar, see Customizing the Toolbar. You can set more than one tag per message.
Choose one of these three ways to tag a message:
The message labeled "To Do " now shows in blue in your message list.
To change the colors or tag names used for coding, click Tools > Options > Display > Tags . Change label characteristics as desired, then click OK.
Deleting mail and managing Trash
To delete mail, select one or more messages and click the Delete button in the toolbar, or press the Delete key on your keyboard.
It's possible to un-do a deletion, but ONLY if you have not closed down Thunderbird. To un-do a deleted message, click Edit > Undo Delete Message .
There are three options for how Thunderbird will handle deleted mail: Move it to the Trash folder, Mark it as deleted, and Remove it immediately. To change this option, click Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings. Choose a delete action, then click OK.
Example 1: Listserv messages moved to another folder
A mail filter is used to automatically move, delete or forward your incoming e-mail messages based on pre-set criteria. For example, you may want to have all e-mail coming from a certain person, organization or listserv filed in a separate folder for later viewing. To create a mail filter, click Tools > Message Filters, then click the New button. Give your filter a name, choose the filter criteria and an action to take on those messages. When finished creating your filter, click OK, then close the Message Filters box. Below is an example of a filter that moves mail from the Lehigh WIRED listserv to a folder called wired-i.
Example 2: SPAM messages moved to Trash
A popular filter is one that moves SPAM messages to the Trash folder (or some other folder to be reviewed later). The following example shows the criteria used to move SPAM to Trash. To create a spam filter, click Tools > Message Filters, then click the New button. Name it Spam Filter and then set the filter criteria and an action to take on those messages. When finished creating your filter, click OK, then close the Message Filters box. Note: Some users like to create a mail folder called "Spam" and move messages there, instead of deleting it. It's a matter of personal preference how you act on spam.
Take control of your mail by using folders
If you tend to keep hundreds of messages in your Inbox, consider building a folder system. Moving messages out of your Inbox and into other folders increases the likelihood of finding messages more quickly when you need them. To move a message into a folder, select it, click the File button in the Toolbar and choose either YourUserID@lehigh.edu or Local Folders. Clicking YourUserID@lehigh.edu displays all of your folders on the mail server. Local Folders shows just the folders on your hard disk. Select the folder where you want to move the message.
Notes
Recent Folders: Filing messages just got easier. As you move from folder to folder in your mail, Thunderbird keeps a running list of these folders in the recent folders list. When you use the File button to move a message from one folder to another, you will see a Recent menu, showing the 15 most recently-used folders for quicker access. However, this list is only refreshed when you close and reopen Thunderbird.
To file a message into a folder that does not appear in the Recent list, simply choose the email account where the folder is found, then click the folder you want to store the message in.
Creating New Folders
To create a new folder on the mail server, right-click YourUserID@lehigh.edu and click New Folder. Or, click File > New > Folder.
Other mail management tips:
You can set up Thunderbird to automatically append a signature file to all of your email. LTS discourages the use of images as a signature file because they can make your email messages many times larger than a message with a simple text signature. Unnecessarily large emails eat into not only your mail quota (on the sending side), but also your recipient's quota (on the receiving side). In addition, some mail programs do not render image signatures perfectly, so it's best to use plain text to ensure readability.
Sample signature file:
Kathleen M. Frederick
Sr. Computing Consultant
Library and Technology Services
Lehigh University
Phone: 610-758-5796
http://www.lehigh.edu/lts/teams/cbe/
To create a signature file:
To configure Thunderbird to use this file, click Tools > Account Settings
To create a new message, click the Write icon. 
To reply to an existing message, click the Reply 
or Reply All 
icons. (Reply All sends a message to everyone who received the original message).
Enter the email address(es) to send to in the address box. You can choose different types of addressing, such as To:, Cc:, and Bcc: (Bcc, short for blind copy, is a copy of a message sent to a recipient without the recipient's email address appearing in the message. This is useful if you want to copy a message to many people without each of them seeing who the other recipients are.)
Enter a subject in the Subject line and the body text in the main section. Use special formatting, such as boldface or bulleting, if desired. Notice that if you have a signature file created and configured in Thunderbird, it already appears within the body of the message.
When ready to send, click the Send icon. 
Attachments: To attach a file to an email message, click on the Attach icon in the composition window. 
Select the file you want to attach and click Open. The file name will be displayed in the list of attachments in the upper right of the Composition window. To remove an attachment before sending, click on it and press the Del key, or right-click the filename and choose Delete.
New Feature! Thunderbird
looks for the word "attachment" (or some variation of it) as you type in the body of your message and reminds you to add the attachment before pressing Send. It also searches for certain file types you enter. You can change or add to the keywords it looks for by clicking Tools > Options > Composition > Keywords.
Mail composition tip: Ever compose a long email with a lot of links and wonder how it might look to the recipient? Save it to the Drafts folder before sending. This gives you an opportunity to check that hyperlinks work, lines wrap properly, etc., while you still have the composition window open. To save a message to Drafts while composing, click File > Save as > Draft. To view the message, go to your Drafts folder and select the message.
You can have Thunderbird automatically save messages to the Draft folder while you are composing them. To turn this feature on, click Tools > Options > Composition. Click the General tab and click the box for "Auto Save every [ x ] minutes." Set a time interval to perform saves, then click OK. Saved drafts will not accumulate in the Drafts folder. When you send the message, the draft copy is automatically cleared from the folder.
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If you find yourself retyping the same sorts of messages in response to routine requests, create a message without addressing it and save it as a template. File > Save as > Template. Then when you need to reply with that message, go to your Templates folder, double-click the template message, address it, edit if necessary, and click Send. Templates remain in the templates folder until or unless you delete them.
Thunderbird includes an inline spellchecker that checks your spelling as you type. This feature is turned on by default. Thunderbird underlines words in red that it doesn't find in its dictionary. It also checks for misspelled words in the Subject heading. If you right-click on a word, you'll see a few suggestions (if it has any) on how you might spell the word correctly, and also offers the option of adding the word to the dictionary if the word is spelled correctly but simply doesn't exist in Thunderbird's dictionary.
If you prefer, you can use spellchecker on an "as needed" basis via the Spell button 
on the Composition window Toolbar. If you want to spell check every message you send, click Tools > Options > Composition, click the Spelling tab and check the box for "Enable spell check as you type," then click OK.
When you create a new email account you have the choice to save your your email password so that you don't have to re-enter it each time you access your email. Warning: This feature is not recommended unless your PC is in a secure area, turned off when unattended, or protected by a login. If it is secure and you want to enable password saving, click the checkbox "Remember password " on the Mail Account Setup screen, enter your password, then click Continue.
When you change your password : Every six months, Lehigh faculty, staff, and students are prompted to change their password for security purposes. The Help Desk frequently gets calls from users who report that their email has stopped working once they change their password. In most cases, the problem is that users have enabled password saving. If you do use this feature, when you change your password you'll have to take a few extra steps:
Forwarding as Inline rather than attachments:
You have two options for forwarding mail messages, Inline or As attachment. When you choose "Inline" you have an opportunity to edit the forwarded message, such as when you want to remove irrelevant text from the original message. When you choose "As attachment" there is no opportunity to modify the text of the forwarded message. It is sent in its entirety. To change this setting, go to Tools > Options > Composition. Choose your preference in the Forward messages: field , then click OK.
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Positioning your replies:
You have several choices for how to position your text when replying to messages. Choose your preference at Tools > Account Settings > Composition & Addressing. You can start your reply and place your signature above or below the quoted message. After you make your choice(s), click OK.
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Saving replies in the folder of the message being replied to:
Thunderbird saves all sent mail to the Sent folder (either on the server, or in Local Folders, depending on your preference). From an organizational standpoint, some users might find it helpful to instead save replies in the same folder of the message being replied to. This is typically your Inbox, but works the same way when replying to a message that's been filed in another folder. To use this feature, click Tools > Account Settings > Copies & Folders. Place a checkmark in the box for "Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to," then click OK.
How to change address display so that your own email address is not listed as "You."
Thunderbird automatically detects your email address and displays "You" when it finds your address. If you prefer to show your email address instead, click Tools > Options > Advanced > Reading & Display. Uncheck the box "Show only display name for people in my address book."
If you have a spreadsheet that contains a column of email addresses, Thunderbird lets you email that group of people simply by pasting the column of addresses into the "To:" field in a Composition window. You do not need to make an email list first if you don't need one.
However, if the data you want to paste is a list of only 4- or 6-digit Lehigh IDs, you must first append "@lehigh.edu" to all the IDs. All mass email messages must be sent to full email addresses. Failure to do so can result in the wrong person or people receiving your email!
This is because when Thunderbird searches 4-digit IDs against the Lehigh directory, it automatically selects a 6-digit ID if it finds one that starts with the same 4-digits. For example, you may intend to email user "aaa4." But if there is a user with the ID "aaa405" that person would receive the email message instead.
Follow these instructions http://www.lehigh.edu/computing/docs/thunderbird/Concat.htm for making full addresses from Lehigh User IDs, then return to this page to continue with the process of emailing the list.
Step 1: Select the column of email addresses from your file, right-click and Copy. BE SURE THE ADDRESS IS A COMPLETE ADDRESS in the form UserID@someplace.xxx. There can be no blank or incomplete cells, or sending of your message will fail.
Step 2: In a Composition window, right-click in the To: field and click Paste. Note: Use the Bcc: field if you prefer to conceal the identities of recipients from one other.
The results will look like this:
Step 3 : Press ENTER. When you press ENTER, notice each email address will appear on its own line. This is an important step, as sending a message with too many addresses in the first row may fail.
Step 4: Click Send.
What if I want to send mass customized emails? No problem! Use Mail Tweak: http://www.lehigh.edu/computing/docs/thunderbird3/MailTweak.htm
Adding another email account to your profile
If you monitor an additional email account for your department, such as an "IN" account, you can add it to your profile so that you can access both accounts within the same Thunderbird session.
Simply click File > New > Mail Account and fill in the required fields. Click Continue. Thunderbird will configure mail settings automatically. When it's finished, click Create Account. Your new mail account will appear below all other existing accounts.
Themes change the look and feel of Thunderbird. If you want to change the default theme, click Tools > Add-ons > Themes > Get Themes
Browse the selection until you find one you like, then follow the on-screen instructions. Do not click Install Now. You must follow the "How to Install in Thunderbird" directions. When instructed to "right-click the link below," this refers to the Install Now button. Save the file to your Desktop.
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After you've saved the installer file to the Desktop, go back to Tools > Add-ons > Themes and click the Install button.
Locate and select the file you saved to the Desktop, then click Open.
Click Install Now to install the theme.
Email overwhelming you? Check out Reclaim your Workday! 10 Ways to Manage your Email
kmm3, Last updated August 26, 2010
. Check or uncheck characteristics you want to see or be removed. Most users check Status and Size, and uncheck Junk Status. 
