Are you wasting too much time going through Thunderbird’s menus to accomplish simple tasks? Can you never remember the keyboard shortcuts? It may be time to install some visual shortcuts.
Thunderbird toolbar buttons provide one-click access to some of Thunderbird’s most useful features. In addition, there are buttons that add new functionality that you would otherwise miss out on.
Here are 10 toolbar buttons for Thunderbird 3 that you must have!
To add the buttons, you need to > right-click onto your Thunderbird navigation bar or toolbar and select > Customize… The > Customize Toolbar window will launch. From there you can drag and drop the buttons into your toolbar and you can > Add New Toolbars.
1. Get all mails
Thunderbird 3 does contain a Get Mail button. However, it takes two clicks to get mail for all your accounts.
If you don’t ever check mails for just one account, you should get this button. It skips the selection and automatically fetches new mail from all your accounts.
2. Remove Duplicate Messages (Alternate)
With this extension, you can search and remove duplicate messages.
By clicking the little arrow in the bottom right, you can set the comparison criteria. These include author, recipients, CC list, status flags, message ID, numbers of lines in message, send time, size, subject, folder, and body. In the example below I picked author as the sole criteria. The extension searches all folders of one eMail account.
3. Mark All Read
Sometimes you have this odd unread message in a random folder or you received a dozen eMails you just want to read later. Now you can skip searching or clicking each and every message, just hit the Mark All Read button.
4. Restart Thunderbird
Thunderbird 3 provides a restart option only after installing a new addon. This button lays the decision when to restart Thunderbird into your hands or rather at the tip of your finger.
5. Exit Button
To properly close Thunderbird, you need to go through > File > Exit. Sure, closing Thunderbird via the Windows’ “close window” button is much quicker, but it rarely shuts the application down. Thunderbird will continue to run in the background.
The Exit button puts the Exit option directly into your toolbar and saves you one click.
6. New Tab Button
Thunderbird 3 supports tabs. I’ve even listed the 5 Extensions For Tabbed Email Browsing in Thunderbird 3. If you enjoy using the internal Thunderbird browser, you will find the New Tab Button extension very useful.
Be sure to have a look at the options for this extension. Here you can define where the button should be added, among other options.
7. Xpunge
The Thunderbird profile folder tends to grow very large. In part that’s because eMail are never really deleted. If you want to make sure all your deleted eMails are really gone forever, you will have to compact your folders.
Xpunge adds a toolbar button to empty the trash folder and compact folders in one or multiple accounts in one go.
For more information about recovering eMails or compacting folders, check out the following articles:
- How To Recover Deleted eMails in Thunderbird
- How To Terminally Delete eMails In Thunderbird By Compacting Folders
8. Filter Button
Filters are rules, based on which mails are sorted into different folders. This button lets you run your filters with one click.
Also, check out How to Set Up Message Filters In Thunderbird.
9. Toolbar Buttons
Tired of downloading one extension after another? Try this one, which comes with 50 buttons for Thunderbird and many more for Firefox and Sunbird. It contains a ton of super useful buttons. Moreover, the extension provides options to finetune its buttons. You can select which language the translate button should use, set a “favorite page”, toggle proxy, or set news and mail client paths.
10. Custom Buttons²
Are you still missing certain buttons? Custom Buttons² allows you to convert bookmarklets into buttons or otherwise use it to build, maintain, import, and export custom toolbar buttons.
In case you can’t be bothered or are lacking the skills, you can use this extension to import existing buttons provided on the Custom Buttons² website.
Pick a button compatible with Thunderbird, > right-click the link to install the button, > copy the URL to your clipboard, then go back to Thunderbird and press the > Insert a Button² button in your toolbar. It will appear instantly.
Which Thunderbird toolbar button is your favorite?
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Hide 9 Comments
Well, it’s gald to read your post, but I wouldn’t understand your meaning well. Thanks all the same.
As to the Exit Button, I just checked and if I close Thunderbird via the windows close it is NOT active according to Windows Task manager. (am using Thunderbird 3.0.4)
So is there any advantage to installing and using the Exit Button? Am I missing something?
And clicking on Get Mail (one click) will get all of my mail. I do not need an extra button for that. Again am I missing something?
As to the Exit Button, I just checked and if I close Thunderbird via the windows close it is NOT active according to Windows Task manager. (am using Thunderbird 3.0.4)
So is there any advantage to installing and using the Exit Button? Am I missing something?
And clicking on Get Mail (one click) will get all of my mail. I do not need an extra button for that. Again am I missing something?
For me, using the Windows close button sometimes does close Thunderbird down properly and sometimes it doesn’t, so it still runs in the background. That’s why I found the exit button a quick and safe way to shut it down with just one click.
As for the Get Mail button, it’s fine if you have just one account set up. In that case clicking Get Mail will get your mail for that account. But if you have several, you have to perform two clicks, i.e. click the little arrow in the bottom right of the button, which opens a menu, and then select “Get All New Messages”, i.e. for all accounts. Hence, the Get All Mail button saves you one click.
For me, using the Windows close button sometimes does close Thunderbird down properly and sometimes it doesn’t, so it still runs in the background. That’s why I found the exit button a quick and safe way to shut it down with just one click.
As for the Get Mail button, it’s fine if you have just one account set up. In that case clicking Get Mail will get your mail for that account. But if you have several, you have to perform two clicks, i.e. click the little arrow in the bottom right of the button, which opens a menu, and then select “Get All New Messages”, i.e. for all accounts. Hence, the Get All Mail button saves you one click.
Get all mail and quit are both available as keyboard shortcuts, along with a host of other useful functions. That is certainly less load on your cpu though the old synapses have to kick in instead.
Can’t someone make a button that allows direct access to “Find email” search ?
Also allowing default search item to be permanently set. I for instance use person’s or sender organisation name typically as search criteria.
Can’t someone make a button that allows direct access to “Find email” search ?
Also allowing default search item to be permanently set. I for instance use person’s or sender organisation name typically as search criteria.