Modify Thunderbird settings

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Revision as of 22:36, 3 April 2009 by Tonymec (talk | contribs) (typo ("…its no longer officially supported…" missing an apostrophe))
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Thunderbird stores any settings you created using "Tools -> Account Settings" or "Tools -> Options" in the prefs.js file in your profile folder.

  • The preferred method to add or modify a setting is to use Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Config Editor. You can search for any preference using the filter edit field, and then double click on it to modify it. This is the Thunderbird specific version of about:config . If you are using a version before 1.5 install the AboutConfig extension. It will add a "Tools -> about:config" menu command which provides similar functionality.
  • You can edit prefs.js using a text editor. You can also create a optional user.js text file in the same directory. A user.js file is mainly used by administrators to set the same settings in several profiles. It is not recommended for most users because any settings you add to it will be merged into prefs.js when Thunderbird starts, preventing permanent changes using the Config Editor.

Example:

You have a problem downloading a large message, or the webmail extension doesn't fetch all of your new mail, and increasing the timeout setting from the default 60 seconds to 120 seconds may help. However, the timeout setting, as with many preferences, cannot be set using the GUI. The first step is to figure out the name of the preference. If you can't find the preference in the knowledge base, try using the Config Editor to identify the name of the preference. If you type timeout in the filter you may see something like the following:

accessibility.typeaheadfind.enabletimeout
accessibility.typeaheadfind.timeout
mail.server.server2.timeout
mail.server.server4.timeout
mailnews.tcptimeout
network.ftp.idleConnectionTimeout
network.http.keep-alive.timeout
network.proxy.failover_timeout

along with their status, type and value. You need a preference whose name begins with mail or mailnews (it tends to have global settings). mail.server.server2.timeout and mail.server.server4.timeout are obviously server specific settings, network.* settings are normally too specialized (NTLM, dialup, cookie related settings etc.) and accessibility.* settings are clearly unrelated. That leaves the mailnews.tcptimeout setting. Double click on it, enter 120, and press the OK button.

If you don't have a mailnews.tcptimeout setting, then you are using Thunderbird version 1.5 or older. Modify mail.pop3_response_timeout the same way. (Note in Thunderbird 2 it may be present, but the setting will no longer work). It defaults to 45 seconds. Try 180 seconds.

Thunderbird doesn't store default settings, so defaults will not appear in prefs.js. If you add a setting that uses the default value it will not keep it. If you don't want to use the Config Editor you could use a text editor or the ChromEdit extension to add user_pref("mailnews.tcptimeout", 120); to either prefs.js or user.js. The advantage of the ChromEdit extension is you don't have to know where the file is stored. The disadvantage is it's no longer officially supported and you may have problems finding a version that works with future versions of Thunderbird. However, its functionality is included as part of the MR Tech Local Install extension. That extension includes a lot of other options, which may be an advantage if you like them, or a disadvantage if all you see in them is bloat.

The defaults\pref\mailnews.js file in your Thunderbird program installation directory contains most of the default settings. It uses a pref prefix rather than a user_pref prefix on any settings. For example, pref("mailnews.tcptimeout", 60); . You should not edit that file. However, it's sometimes useful to view that file to find out what preferences exist and what their default values are.

See also