Tune Up Your Thunderbird

I have been using Thunderbird since 2004 for work email (before I just logged in my account in a Linux server via SSH Client – both desktop mail software and web (server) mail have their own pros and cons, which can be another story). Unlike Firefox, I only installed one add-on before 2007, “Attachment Extractor”. That’s enough for me.

But this year, I have learned more tricks on Thunderbird. First I switched from Sunbird to Lightning, an integrated calendar add-on for Thunderbird, just like Outlook. QuickText is also very efficient to add repetitive responses to email and allow you to customize the opening & ending to different groups of recipients (see my previous post). The last add-on I installed is Send Later, which allows you to send the email at specific time and date as long as Thunderbird is running. This way you can prepare some emails (reminder or announcement) in advance, which can be sent later, not just sitting in the Drafts folder.

Gina at Lifehacker listed Eight killer Thunderbird extensions, which are worth considering (I’m going to try some more). Here is another opinion about what 10 must-have add-ons are for Thunderbird, which has been extended to 25. However, this site doesn’t include QuickText on its list; it picks up Signature Switch instead. I’m not share this is as handy as QuickText.

EDIT: I have installed Contacts Sidebar and QuoteCollapse. Both are quite small and neat. Great!