Changing the default forwarding behavior in Mozilla Thunderbird

Posted on 08 April 2008 by


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I have recently started using Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail program for my e-mail coming into Gear Diary.  It supports many protocols my favorite being IMAP.   Not to mention that it is multi platform running on Windows, Max OS X and of course Linux.

One annoying behavior that I’ve discovered about Thunderbird is it defaults to sending all e-mail forwards as attachments.  In theory, nothing is wrong with this behavior, but it creates an attachment that ends in “.eml”.  Some mail providers like Gear Diary’s provider will block this with their spam or virus detection software.

I did some poking around and discovered an easy, but obscure fix. First, go to Edit – Preferences then you need to go to the Advanced tab on the Preferences dialog  and press the Config Editor button to being up Thunderbird’s configuration editor.  In the Filter box, type in forward until you see the key in the screenshot below:

Thunderbird Forward

The default value, 0, means that Thunderbird will send e-mail forwards as attachments.  This isn’t what I want, due my e-mail forwards to Judie being bounced!   Changing this to 2 will inline the forward message so that the e-mail gets out to anyone who have a provider with strict mail attachment rules.

When you forward a e-mail, it will look like this:

Mail Forward

Now e-mail forwards will not bounce! :-D

This post was written by:

- who has written 491 posts on Gear Diary.

Joel is a system admin for a local college in Columbus, OH. While he loves Linux and tend to use it more than anything else, he will stoop to running closed source if it is the best tool for the job. His techno passions are Linux, Android, netbooks, GPS, podcasting and Personal Media Players.

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  • http://www.justanothermobilemonday.com patrickj

    Cool tip! I have recently switched to a Mac, and have been alternating between Thunderbird and the Mac Mail client. This forwarding one has annoyed me as well …

  • Joel Mclaughlin

    Glad I could help. It’s annoyed me enough I HAD to find a solution! :D

  • ballardelle

    There’s an easier way! And much easier to remember. Go to Tools > Options > Composition, General tab. First option is to set the forwarding behavior. Choose “inline” instead of “as attachment” and you’re all set. I agree that this is an annoying default setting. One of the first things I change when I install Tbird for someone.

    The other thing I find truly puzzling in Tbird’s default setup is that it doesn’t highlight incoming high priority messages. By default the “Priority” column isn’t even showing! So I create an incoming filter to make all high priority messages be tagged as “Important.” That way they show up in red in my inbox, and catch my attention.

  • http://www.graphical-illusion.com Elodie

    -grins- what ballardelle said! But either ways probably change the same setting, so why not through the advanced config thing. :)

  • Murali

    Is there a way to get rid of the — Original message — and the table with the original email headers?
    I find that it is annoying.

  • Seth

    Super-useful tip. Thanks! I have colleagues who have to use Outlook (poor souls), and the .eml attachments in my forwards weren’t opening correctly for them half of the time. Now, no problems.

  • http://www.mikethis.com Michael Schuerlein

    This only works if you manually forward a message unfortunately.

    I have a rule set up that automatically forwards any incoming email to my gmail account, so I can view it on my phone. The problem lies in that the iPhone cannot view .eml attachments.

    I could solve this by setting up imap, but I currently have a bunch of accounts through various websites I run – so it’s not very practical.

    My whole reasoning for switching from outlook to thunderbird was to rid myself of issues with outlook. Until this issue is addressed, I cannot use thunderbird.

  • xux99

    Is there a way to get rid of the — Original message — and the table with the original email headers?
    I find that it is annoying.

    You can use Mail Redirect extension. Download it at: https://addons.mozilla.org/el/thunderbird/addon/550

  • physicaltherapy

    Joel:

    Aloha! I am indebted 2 your diligence. I have no problems working with your solution since its pretty much like regedit.

    However, Thunderbird #5 has switched the Config editor to the Tools menu (& probably will change it again in a few weeks or so)…. they seem to be ever evolving. ;-)

    Thanks again: btw here is the new path (vs. that of your original solid post in May 2011) v v v

    >Tools >Options >Advanced >Config Editor >Preference Name
    Status: default
    Type: integer
    Value: 0 (this is the one you change)
    right click; modify to 2