Extensions for Thunderbird
Extensions are small add-ons that bring additional features to Thunderbird. There are hundreds (thousands?) of extensions that do everything from the extremely useful to the incredibly frivolous. If there's some feature you wish Thunderbird had, check the extensions! Chances are someone else has felt the same need.
CIT does not actively recommend any particular extension, but our collective experience has brought the usefulness of certain extensions to the light. We present them here for your consideration, but, for simplicity's sake, suggest that you do not install an extension unless you feel the need for what it offers.
How to install an extension
In Thunderbird, from the Tools menu, select Extensions. A window showing your current extensions will open. (If you have no extensions, the window will still open.)
- At the bottom of the Extensions window, click on Get More Extensions.
- Your browser will open to the Thunderbird Add-ons page. Here you can browse or search for extensions.When you find an extension you want to install:
- Right-click the Install Now link and choose Save Link As... then choose where on your computer to save the extension (the desktop is an easy place to remember).
- Go back to Thunderbird. If the Extensions window is still open, good, you're in the right place. If the Extensions window is not open, from the Tools menu select Extensions.
- Click the Install button.
- Locate and select the file you downloaded and click OK.
- Exit and restart Thunderbird to activate the extension.
Refer to the extension's documentation or developer notes to learn how to use the extension. |
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Things you should know before installing any extensions
- Extensions are written by third-parties, which means anyone from Google to some guy living in his mom's basement. Naturally the quality of extensions varies greatly. Your best bet is to read the user comments before installing an extension.
- Each time a new version of Thunderbird is released, each extension's author needs to update their extension. As you might expect, some authors are better at this than others. Until the extension has been updated, it is disabled.
- If you find that Thunderbird doesn't seem to be working right, try running Thunderbird with no extensions. (How do I run Thunderbird with no extensions?) Sometimes two extensions will interfere with each other.
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If You Need this Feature... |
Suitable Extensions |
| Protect yourself by making your attachments "read-only" |
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| Redirect incoming mail to another address |
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| Make the font bigger |
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| Make images bigger |
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| Store phrases, sentence, paragraphs, etc. and use them repeatedly (in various messages) |
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| Import/Export sets of filters (from Thunderbird on one computer to another) |
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| Show how much of your mail server storage you're using |
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| Allow multiple signature files |
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| Queue mail for sending automatically later |
<< none currently available >> |
| Expand the options for how you reply to messages (what text is included, what it looks like, etc.) |
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Last updated:
May 23, 2007
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