Thankfully, Thunderbird is highly customizable. A series of settings changes can make the user interface (UI) much cleaner. After completing these alterations, users accustomed to simple interfaces like Apple Mail, Windows Mail, and typical webmail accounts will feel right at home.
Add and Remove Inbox Columns
Before we begin, you need Thunderbird installed and an email account setup.
Once that’s taken care of, the first thing we need to address is the columns in the inbox. Let’s change the defaults to make Thunderbird more like typical webmail.
Right-click on any of the inbox column labels; for example, Subject. In the menu that opens, click Select Messages and From to enable them. Now click Thread, Read, Correspondents, and Junk Status to disable them. Click anywhere outside the window to close it.
Let’s go over what we’ve done, and why we’ve done it.
We added the Select Messages checkbox next to each email so that we have a graphical way to select multiple emails; don’t worry, keyboard shortcuts still work. It might not seem like it at first, but this is a major change to the way Thunderbird works—which we’ll return to in later steps. We’ve replaced the Correspondents column with the much more straightforward From field.
As for removals, most folks won’t need (and don’t understand) the Thread column. Since unread emails already appear in bold, the Read indicator column is an unnecessary redundancy. Because users are accustomed to marking emails as spam within the email itself, or in bulk using the newly enabled Select Messages checkboxes, Junk Status is another confusing column for casual users.
Move Attachments
The Attachments column is the only way to see if an email has an attachment prior to opening it, so it needs to stay. It can, however, be moved to a less-prime position on the interface.
Click and drag Attachment to the other side of Subject. If an email has an attachment, the attachment indicator will appear immediately before From:
Change the Date Sort Order
One major complaint about Thunderbird is the default sorting order. As you may have noticed from the screenshot above, the oldest emails are at the top, with the newest emails at the bottom.
Click on Date towards the upper right-hand side of the interface to reverse the sort the order from ascending to descending.
Now, new emails will appear first:
Collapse and Remove Toolbars
Now let’s switch our focus to the toolbars. First, we want to remove or hide elements that are unnecessary to most users. Then, we’ll add back some of the removed functionality in a simpler way.
Click the menu icon, then View, then Toolbars. Click Folder Pane Toolbar, Quick Filter Bar, Spaces Toolbar, and Status Bar to disable them.
Don’t fear; we haven’t really removed the Quick Filter Toolbar or Spaces Toolbar. We’ve simply collapsed them into the Quick Filter and Spaces buttons in order to remove interface clutter.
You can re-enable the Quick Filter toolbar at any time by clicking the Quick Filter button. Similarly, the functions previously located in the Spaces toolbar can now be found in a menu that opens when you click the Spaces button:
The Spaces toolbar previously took up the entire height of the left side of the interface. The alternative Spaces button is much more compact, with a simple icon the upper left-hand corner.
As for actual removals, the Folder Pane toolbar is likely too advanced for single-account users.
The most useful metric in the Status toolbar is unread emails. However, that number already appears in parentheses next to the Inbox in the Folder pane, making the Status bar largely redundant. With it gone, you will have freed up some more pixels along the entire width of the bottom of your screen.
Collapse Local Folders
Unfortunately, there is no option to remove local folders. It’s often a source of confusion for single-account users, but it’s necessary for Thunderbird to function, so the best we can do is collapse it. To do this, click on the down arrow next to Local Folders to collapse it.
Mail Toolbar
In this step, we’re going to add some buttons to the primary mail toolbar to better mimic simpler email clients.
Right-click anywhere on the Mail Toolbar. It’s the space between Quick Filter and Search. In the menu that opens, select Customize. Drag Archive, Junk, Delete, and Mark from the Customize toolbar window into the Mail toolbar. Then, place them between Write and Tag. In the Customize Toolbar window, click Done.
The Mail toolbar should now have all the typical options. When used in conjunction with the Select Messages checkboxes, the new buttons make Thunderbird work like a standard webmail interface.
Layout
Last but certainly not least, let’s enable the standard three-column layout of most modern email clients and webmail accounts.
Click the menu icon in the upper right-hand corner, then View, and then Layout. Click Vertical View to enable it.
And with that, the transformation is complete:
While already the best free desktop email client around, Thunderbird now looks more approachable and functions in a more familiar way to casual, personal email users.
When we started, Thunderbird had toolbars on the left and bottom of the screen. There were even toolbars under other toolbars up top. However, it had no clear way to select multiple messages—and not very many useful buttons in the main toolbar.
Throughout this article, we fixed all of that with a handful of simple settings changes and customizations. And along the way, we also saved a ton of screen real estate by removing unneeded or redundant toolbars. You’ve seen us collapse the more useful the ones into space-saving buttons, with no loss of functionality.
While Thunderbird is an alternative to Microsoft’s professional-grade Outlook, it can easily be scaled down to embrace even the most novice users.
