If like me or because of me, you’ve installed Thunderbird as your email client, you may have ignored some of the useful extensions that other users have written for the program. Below, are six extensions I recommend you install to make your email client of choice a little bit better and a lot more useful. Installing extensions is pretty easy. First, download the .xpi file (be careful that you don’t install it in Firefox by mistake). Then, open the Tools->Extensions menu and click on the Install button in the lower left. Select the file you downloaded, then click install. You’ll have to restart Thunderbird to activate your extensions. And now the list:
- Allow HTML Temporary: quickly switch to an HTML version of an email message, if one was sent. Very useful if you have to review emails sent in both a text and HTML part.
- Contacts Sidebar: view your addressbook at the bottom of the left pane.
- Display Quota: If you have an IMAP account with a quota (disk space limit), view how close to the limit you are.
- Quote Colors: This is the most useful and unintrusive extension of the bunch. Instead of seeing a row of >>>, each quote level will get a different background color. Long correspondences within a message become much easier to read.
- Remember Mismatched Domains: If you run your own mail server and use a self-signed certificate, you’ll want this extension. It adds a checkbox to the Domain Name Mismatch warning windows allowing you to in effect whitelist your certificate.
- Quick Text: Easily insert pre-defined text into your messages. For example, to insert different signatures in different accounts.