View source for Disable the new mail system tray icon

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Thunderbird displays a new mail icon in the system tray even if you uncheck all of the checkboxs in Tools -> Options -> General -> "When a new message arrives".

==Changing within Thunderbird==
===Versions earlier than 2.0===

Supposedly you can disable that icon by setting the update.showSlidingNotification and '''mail.server.default.notify.on''' preferences to false using Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Config Editor. However, that doesn't seem to work with Thunderbird 1.5.

===Version 2.0===

Open the configuration editor (Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Config Editor) and toggle '''mail.biff.show_tray_icon''' to '''false'''. (Windows only?)

==Workarounds==

===Windows XP or later===

A workaround is to configure Windows to hide the icon for you. The system tray doesn't have to show the icon when you do this.

* Right click on the Start button and select properties. 
* Select the Taskbar tab. 
* Check "Hide inactive icons" (if its not checked) in order to enable the Customize button.
* Press the Customize button. 
* Find the envelope icon in the list and select it. In the dropdown that appears, select "Always Hide".
* You may find that checking "Hide inactive icons" set the other icons in the list to "Hide when inactive". Select each of them and set them to "Always show" if this occurs.
* Press the OK button.

===Earlier versions of Windows===

Use a utility program such as [http://www.mlin.net/TraySaver.shtml TraySaver] to hide the icon for an application in the system tray.

===Linux===

You need may to install the [http://moztraybiff.mozdev.org/ Mozilla New Mail Icon (Biff)] extension to display an icon in the standard (FreeDesktop.org) system tray (used by GNOME, KDE and IceWM) when new mail arrives. Uninstall it if you don't want this functionality. There is a seven year old [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18732 bug report] requesting new mail notification in the system tray. See [[Updating_add-ons | updating add-ons]] if it doesn't support your version of Thunderbird for how to bypass the version checking. Frequently if you do that an older add-on will work.

Ubuntu installs Thunderbird without that extension, and displays an icon in the system tray when new mail arrives. It installs a [http://alltray.trausch.us/ Alltray] program thats designed to "dock any application with no native tray icon (like Evolution, Thunderbird, Terminals) into the system tray.". They also have builds for SuSE, Fedora, Debian , Gentoo and "generic". Try searching for tray and/or Thunderbird in your distributions package manager to see if you have a similar package. 

[http://kdocker.sourceforge.net/ Kdocker] , [http://www.kbiff.org/ Kbiff], [http://gnubiff.sourceforge.net/ GnuBiff], and [http://www.nongnu.org/mailnotify/ Mail Notification] are examples of email notification programs that can use the system tray.

There is also the [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/firetray/ FireTray] add-on. It supports Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Seamonkey 2 and Songbird under Linux, letting you use a custom icon, hide to tray instead of closing, and display the number of unread messages .

==See also==
* [[Modify_Thunderbird_settings | Modify Thunderbird settings]]
* [[Minimize to system tray (Thunderbird)]]

==External links==
* [https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/thunderbird/addon/alertswitch/ AlertSwitch] add-on lets you disable new mail notification with one click without closing Thunderbird.
* [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2610/ MailBox Alert] add-on lets you specify for each folder a message, sound and/or a system command that will be executed when new mail is detected there.
* [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/dbus-notifications/?src=dp-dl-oftenusedwith DBus notification] add-on sends a DBus notification when a new message is received (Linux only).
* [http://shmerl.blogspot.com/2010/11/thunderbird-new-mail-notification-for.html New mail notification for freedesktop compliant systems]
* [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2072489 Problems with beep for new mail under Ubuntu]

[[Category:Issues (Thunderbird)]]
[[Category:Visual customizations (Thunderbird)]]