Thunderbird Preferences

Many aspects of Mozilla Thunderbird are configurable to suit the needs of different individuals. Many of these options may have defaults which may or may not be the expected behavior for users. This guide details some of those options and adds some recommendations for students using Thunderbird at Stern.

General

• Attachments - Items saved from attachements can either always be saved to one location, or prompt the user each time for a location to save the file. To modify this setting, click Tools -> Options then select Attachments. Under the Attachment Folder heading you can now select to either ask every time or always save it to a given location.
• Mail View - When reading a new mail, Thunderbird can either open a seperate new window, or view the mail directly in the main window. To change this setting, click Tools -> Options then select General. In the Message Window Behavior, select the behavior you would prefer.
• Reply Messages - When replying to messages, where the cursor is placed, at the beginning or the end of the quoted message, is important. To change this behavior, click Tools -> Account Settings, then select Composition & Addressing. In the Composition window, select either Then, start my reply below the quote or Then, start my reply above the quote. For most users, above the quote is recommended.
• Trash - By default, items deleted will remain in the Trash until it is emptied. Mail in the trash will continue to use the alloted quota space. To automatically empty your trash on exit, click Tools -> Account Settings and click Server Settings. Then check or un-check Empty Trash On Exit under the Server Settigs section.

Accounts

All account settings can be found by clicking Tools -> Account Settings from the mail Thunderbird window. All of the following items are changed through the account settings window:

• Signatures - Thunderbird easily allows users to add a custom signature to the end of emails. To add a signature, click on the account to change, then check the box next to Attach this signature. Click Choose and then navigate to and select the text file you would like to see appended to every outgoing message from that account.
• Incoming Refresh Rate - You can configure Thunderbird to check regularly for new messages on the IMAP server. Click Server Settings, and enable Check for new messages every ____ minutes under the Server Settings header. We recommend setting this to every 5 minutes.
• Saving Sent Messages - Often you may want to keep records of sent messages. You can save these to the IMAP server so they are available everywhere by selecting Copies & Folders. Under the When sending messages automatically: heading, make sure it is checked to place a copy in "Sent" Folder on: NetID@stern.nyu.edu.

Mail Composition

• Forwarding Style - Forwarded messages can either be sent as new attachements, or in the text of the new message. Click Tools -> Options, the select Composition. Check the box Forward messages: to suit your needs. We recommend you forward messages Inline (the default is As Attachment).
• Spell Checking - Spell checking can be set to run either automatically when sending, or only when requested. To change this setting, click Tools -> Options then select Composition. Under the Composing Messages header, check or un-check the item Check spelling before sending.
• Message Encoding - Users can configure if they want to compose messages as HTML or plain-text by default (Note: If formatting is added, emails will automatically be sent as HTML emails). To change the default type, click Tools -> Account Options, the click Composing & Addressing from the left. Check or un-check Compose messages in HTML format from the Composition section.