• Home
• Download

• Home
• Download

By default, Thunderbird will automatically hide images in your e-mails from users who are not in your address book. This is a security precaution for helping you distinguish spam e-mails from real ones. If you dislike this behavior, you can show all remote images automatically.

1. Open your Config Editor by going to Tools (Menu) > Options > Advanced > General > Config Editor. (Ignore the warning)
2. In the filter bar, type mailnews.message_display.disable_remote_image and press Enter
3. Default value should be true. Change this to False.
   

Sometimes accidentally clicking e-mails can lead to accidentally marking e-mails as read. You can make Thunderbird wait before marking them as read.

1. Go to Tools (Menu) > Advanced > Reading & Display
2. Underneath Automatically mark messages as read, choose After displaying for 5 seconds. You can change this number to something you prefer.
   

By default, Thunderbird will try to download and store local copies of all of your e-mails. This isn't necessary if you're using an IMAP connection for your Gmail or other e-mail provider. IMAP downloads your e-mails as you view them because it keeps a constant connection to the server. If you catch Thunderbird downloading thousands of e-mails and you would like to turn off this behavior, this is how you do it.

1. Go to Tools (Menu) > Account Settings.
2. On the left, beneath the account you would like to modify, click on Synchronization & Storage, uncheck Keep messages for this account on this computer.
3. Choose Synchronize the most recent and change this to 7 days or less.
4. Check Don't download messages larger than 50 KB.
   

Thunderbird, by default, will categorize your e-mails in the most useless order. I prefer to view my e-mails by date received, with newest e-mails at the top. If you have many folders (or labels), you will have to change the sorting order for every single folder individually. Luckily, there's a fix that can do it for all folders.

1. Open your Config Editor by going to Tools (Menu) > Options > Advanced > General > Config Editor. (Ignore the warning)
2. In the filter bar, type mailnews.default_ and press Enter.
3. Change mailnews.default_news_sort_order from 1 to 2
4. Change mailnews.default_sort_order from 1 to 2
5. Restart Thunderbird
   

All folders that you have NOT recently browsed will be affected by this change and will now sort by date received (newest e-mails at the top). Folders for which you have already browsed will need to be changed manually. It's best to perform this tweak before browsing any folders.

Thunderbird will store your profile on your C drive in the application data folder. I find this to be risky because I frequently reinstall Windows. If I forget to backup this folder, I risk losing my program information, and in this case, the Thunderbird profile.

 

Moving your Thunderbird Profile

1. First, locate your Thunderbird profile by using Windows File Explorer.
   
   The default Thunderbird location on XP is:
   C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\Your Profile
   
   The default Thunderbird location on Vista or Windows 7 is:
   C:\Users\Your Name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\Your Profile
2. Once you have located your profile, simply copy (or cut) it and paste it into a new location (preferably a different harddrive or partition).

 

To change the location of your Thunderbird profile or create a new profile:

1. Go to your Start Menu and click Run. If you do not see Run, type Run in the Start Menu Search Bar and click the result that says Run.
2. Type "Thunderbird.exe -p" (without quotes) and press Enter.
3. From here, you can create a new Thunderbird profile. Even if all you are trying to do is move your profile folder, you still must create a new profile. Click Create Profile and click Next.
4. Type a name for your profile. Click Choose Folder.
5. Navigate for the folder where you moved your Thunderbird profile, or where you plan to create a new profile. If you are planning to make a brand new profile, make sure you create a folder for it with a name that matches your profile name. Choose this folder.
6. Click Finish.
7. You may now launch the new profile and this will become the new default location for your Thunderbird profile.
   

Thunderbird profiles are stored on your harddrive in an unencrypted folder. This means all of your mail is exposed and anybody with access to your computer can view and read your e-mails. Adding a Master password does little to protect Thunderbird. For the best security, I recommend creating a Truecrypt volume and storing your Thunderbird profile in it.

1. Create a Truecrypt volume at least 500MB in size. You can make it gigabytes if you want.
2. Make sure you make it a dynamic volume so that your volume does not physically take up the unused space. Thunderbird profiles are relatively small in size, so a dynamic volume will ensure that your truecrypt volume is not using any unnecessary harddrive space.
3. When using a dynamicly sized Truecrypt Volume, make sure your harddrive never runs out of space while your Truecrypt volume is in use, otherwise it may become corrupt. This is an extremely rare case, but should be noted.
4. Follow the steps above for moving or creating a new Thunderbird profile inside of the Truecrypt volume.
5. Make sure you always mount the truecrypt volume using the same drive letter, or you will have issues accessing your Thunderbird profile.
6. (Alternative) Download and install Thunderbird Portable in your Truecrypt volume. The default Thunderbird Portable profile will reside in the location of your portable Thunderbird. This eliminates the drive letter issue noted in step 5. Download Thunderbird Portable from portableapps.com.