More than a year back, Aibek wrote a great list of 35 must-have thunderbird addons
10 Must-Have Thunderbird Addons (+ 25 More)
10 Must-Have Thunderbird Addons (+ 25 More)
Thunderbird lives on. This desktop email client thrives because of its many customization options. These must-have Thunderbird addons will help you make the most of it.
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. Since then, a lot of great addons have been created and some of the older addons have also evolved to become better ones.
As such, it is time for us to re-visit the list of Thunderbird addons and update our readers with the latest list of must-have Thunderbird addons. (If you never heard of Thunderbird before, it’s an email client from Mozilla Switching To Mozilla Thunderbird!!! Switching To Mozilla Thunderbird!!! Read More , just like Microsoft’s Outlook but a lot more customizable.)
1. Lightning and its related addons
If you are looking to use Thunderbird to replace your Outlook (or Evolution in Linux), then Lightning is a must-have extension. It adds calendar and task management capabilities to Thunderbird and allows you to manage your daily schedule all within Thunderbird.
At the same time, there are also several Lightning-related extensions that further enhances the functionality and capabilities of Lightning.
- ThunderBirthday and MoreFunctionsForAddressBook: MoreFunctionsForAddressBook is an extension that increases the number of fields that you can include in your address book. You now have the option to include the birthday, photo ID, spouse name etc. ThunderBirthday, on the other hand, extracts birthday information from your address book and updates it to the Lightning. With this, you don’t have to manually enter the birthday entry in your Lightning and you won’t ever forget your best friend’s birthday again.
.vcs support: This extension allows you to export your Lightning entries to .vcs format. Currently it only supports .ics, .csv and .htm format.
Remember The Milk Integration: This is still an experiemental addon, but it is in no way inferior than the rest. If you love Remember The Milk, then you are going to love this extension as well. As its name implies, this extension will integrate and sync RTM with Lightning.
2. Thunderbrowse
When someone sends you a link, wouldn’t it be great if you can open the link and browse the Web right within your Thunderbird? Thunderbrowse is here just to serve that purpose. After you have installed this extension, whenever you click on a link within your mail, the message pane will become a full-fledged browser and allow you to view the website without having to open up a browser window.
Like Firefox, it supports tabbed browsing and javascript. In addition, with Thunderbrowse, you can install the Thunderbird extension within itself. There is no need to download the xpi file and install it via the Tools -> Addons section.
3. Foxclocks
If you are like me who always corresponds with partners all around the world, you will appreciate the usefulness of Foxclock. Foxclock is an extension that lets you keep watch of the time around the world by putting small clocks in your statusbar. Next time when you send an email to your partner, you will know why he doesn’t reply to you instantly. He could most probably be sleeping in his country.
In addition, Foxclocks also integrates well with Google Earth. If you don’t know where Budapest is, simply right click and choose ‘Google Earth…’. It will bring you to where it is.
4. Quicktext
Quicktext is useful for several purposes:
1. It allows you to create templates so that you don’t have to spend lot of time replying repetitive emails.
2. It allows you to create multiple signatures and insert them accordingly to the person you are sending to.
3. It allows you to substitute specific text with a predefined variable, such as [[TO=firstname]]
If you are one who has to send repetitive emails all the time, this extension is the one that you must have.
5. Thunderbird Biff
Thunderbird Biff checks your email in the background and notifies you (in Firefox or Sunbird) when new mail has arrived. To get this extension to work, you will need to install the Thunderbird Biff server version of Thunderbird and the client version in Firefox/Sunbird. Once it is installed, it will display an icon at the status bar. Whenever a new mail has arrived, the icon will pop up and notify you.
6. Sync Kolab
Sync Kolab uses the Kolab technology to synchronize your address book and calendar (Lightning) with several other computers and platform. Basically, it makes use of an IMAP server to do the synchronization. It supports vCard/iCal/xml format and is compatible with a lot of other mail/calendar clients.
7. Auto Address Cleaner
Auto Address Cleaner cleans up your address field and eliminates any chances of offending the recipients by using wrong (possibly mistyped in the address book) names in the To/Cc fields. Instead of displaying the name of the recipient, it will only show their email address.
8. Google-related addons
For those who are fans of Google apps or you simply can’t live without Google, here are some of the extensions that integrates Google apps into Thunderbird.
- Gmail IMAP setup – enables you to setup Gmail IMAP account with almost zero configuration.
Google Contact – synchronizes Thunderbird with Google contacts.
Provider for Google Calendar – allows bi-directional sync between Lightning and Google Calendar.
9. Check and Send
Have you ever sent an email and realized that you didn’t attach a file to it? The Check and Send extension checks your message content, subject and address before you send the message. You can define a specified keyword for it to look out for (such as ‘attachment’, ‘attached files’) and inform you when no attachment was found. You can also use it to check if certain words exist in the message or if the recipient is in the address book.
10. Tags Toolbar
Are you missing your favorite tags in Gmail? You can have it now. Tag Toolbar allows you to add tags for your email. You can define your own tags, specify the color and there is a nice toolbar that makes it easy for you to tag your emails.
Do check out Aibek’s article for the other 35 must have Thunderbird addons 10 Must-Have Thunderbird Addons (+ 25 More) 10 Must-Have Thunderbird Addons (+ 25 More) Thunderbird lives on. This desktop email client thrives because of its many customization options. These must-have Thunderbird addons will help you make the most of it. Read More .
Also, don’t forget to download the Thunderbird cheat sheet 10 Essential Cheat Sheets To Download 10 Essential Cheat Sheets To Download Read More that contains plenty of excellent shortcuts for Thunderbird users. Highly recommended.
Wow! Starting downloading them now :) .
Thank you.
Great list! I’m downloading several of them right now...
i have been using Thunderbird for a long time, but didn't know these things. THank you a lot!
very good this list, i like it.
Nice list! Thanks!
Great list! I’m downloading several of them right now..
Nice list! I use Lightning, Provider and the sync with google contacts...
There is no direct way to sync iPhone and Thunderbird, but you can do a three way sync with Google Cal, Lightning and iPhone. Once you have set it up, the sync is almost seamless.
We use a great tool called myDocs which is an add-in for Outlook, that lets us view SharePoint Document Libraries by clicking standard Outlook folders, and drag emails into these folders to upload into SharePoint.
There is more information on this at nsynergy.com/Products/myDocs/Pages/About_myDocs.aspx
Great list!
I appreciate that you took the time to focus on Thunderbird.
The only one that I see as not necessary is Thunderbird Biff.
Thunderbird already provides options to be notified when new mail arrives.
Tools > Options > General >
When new messages arrives:
Show an alert
Play a sound
What is displayed and the sound that is used are customizable.
Thunderbird 3 is looking really great and will have an integrated calendar based on Lightning, tabs, easier account setup and much more.
I've been using Thunderbird since 1.0 and if my PC is on, Thunderbird is open along side of Firefox. I can't imagine computing any other way.
@Damian
Here's why I use Thunderbird but in short, Thunderbird is best for managing multiple email accounts in one place regardless of who the email provider is and there is an account setup wizard specifically for Gmail.
__________________
Ken - My Thunderbird
On the contrary, my Thunderbird is closed all the times unless there is new mails coming. That's why I need Thunderbird Biff to keep me notified of new mail in Firefox.
Will check out Thunderbird 3.
This is not a very good list of add-ons. Not that I could come up with others that are better, the only one out of this entire list that I would/do use is Lightning. All the others seem not so productive. Especially the ones that interfere with the actual sending of the mail. Even if I send a stupid email, I would rather have it just be sent than have a box pop up and ask me a bunch of questions.
Anyways, I am glad to see that you put effort into making a quality list. Even though I don't plan on using any of the other extensions, I'm sure somebody will find them useful. Thanks for sharing.
You sound like a mouth-breathing imbecile.
Nice list! I use Lightning, Provider and the sync with google contacts.
I had never heard of Kolab and def. like it.
Email is insecure and untrustworthy. Tighten it up with PGP.
Use Enigmail:
enigmail.mozdev.org/
Which is an integration system for GnuPG (A free implementation of the OpenPGP standard).
Get GPG here:
Linux/UNIX: gnupg.org/
Windows: gpg4win.org/
Mac: macgpg.sourceforge.net/
Use it in Firefox and any webmail system with FireGPG:
getfiregpg.org/
Sign and Encrypt when ever and where ever possible!
Yup. That's a good one.
Great list! I'm downloading several of them right now.
Nostalgy is another great timesaver. It lets you set up rules to file emails into folders using a short cut combination. It's the main reason I'm now unable to switch to any other email client. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2487
Yes, that is a good one. Aibek has already included that in his previous list (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-must-have-thunderbird-addons-25-more/), that why I didn't include in this time.
You stated your private gmail address in there. Re-check it out. Is it worth to have thunderbird because I have gmail.
Thanks. I have got it removed.
Good list.Great going Damien Oh
Those are great suggestions, Damien Oh.
If you're using Thunderbird to organize business or customer email, you might also find great value in Email Center Pro, a service that can work as an add-on. It centralizes customer/business email, making it transparent and accessible by everyone in the organization. Eliminates clunky rules or tripping over co-workers.