Sunday, January 9th 2011


How to Setup Replies in Thunderbird like Outlook

Introduction

I’ve been using Netscape and then Thunderbird as a mail client for many years. The main benefit of Thunderbird is its multi-platform support. At home my family and I use Linux, MacOS and Windows so with Thunderbird we can all use the same email client.

However one item that has always bothered me was the way replies and forwards are formatted in Thunderbird. Instead, I have do admit, I do like Outlook style replies. And with many companies using Outlook as their default mail client being able to setup replies in Thunderbird to look like replies in Outlook is even more important.

mail1

Thunderbird Setup

Thunderbird Extensions Installation

Use Tools > Add-ons to install the SmartTemplate and QuoteAndComposeManager extensions in Thunderbird. Restart Thunderbird after the extensions have been installed.

SmartTemplate

QuoteAndComposeManager Extension

In the QuoteAndComposeManager extension enable the Hide automatically borders option. This will hide the borders in HTML mails and delete the quoting character “>” in plain-text emails.

hideborders

SmarTemplate Extension

In the SmartTemplate extension create templates for New, Reply and Forward – Note: by default all accounts defined in Thunderbird will use the same Common templates but if required each accounts can have their own custom templates. These templates will be used instead of the default signatures and replies/forwards in Thunderbird. Refer to the SmartTemplate documentation for more information about the reserved words that can be used in the templates.

New: This template will be used as a signature when composing a new email.

Save

<br /><br />
<b>First Last</b><br />

FYI if you wish to display a picture in your signature you will have to use the moz-do-not-send=”false” tag as show below:

newpic

mailpic

Reply: This template will be used when replying to an email.

Reply

<br /><br />
<hr style="height: 1px;border: none solid #000;color:#000;background-color:#000;" />
<b>From:</b> %from%
<b>Sent:</b> %datelocal%
<b>To:</b> %to(name)%{
<b>Cc:</b> %cc(name)%}
<b>Subject:</b> %subject%
<br />

Forward: This template will be used when forwarding an email. It is usually the same as the Reply template.

Forward

<br /><br />
<hr style="height: 1px;border: none solid #000;color:#000;background-color:#000;" />
<b>From:</b> %from%
<b>Sent:</b> %datelocal%
<b>To:</b> %to(name)%{
<b>Cc:</b> %cc(name)%}
<b>Subject:</b> %subject%
<br />

Thunderbird Account Settings

Since the signatures were defined in the SmartTemplate extension remove all the signatures for all your accounts.

account

Finally make sure to select start my reply above the quote and disable the Include signatures for replies and Include signatures for forwards options in the Composition & Addressing tab.

composition

That’s it you’re done. Thunderbird is now setup to match Outlook replies and forward formatting.