[Tip] Always Show Thunderbird System Tray Icon in Windows Taskbar

If you want to always show Mozilla Thunderbird’s icon in Taskbar system tray or notification area in Windows operating system, this article will help you.

Mozilla Thunderbird is a popular desktop email client software which is used by people to send/receive emails using their email accounts. It also comes with RSS feed support.

In older versions of Thunderbird, users could force Thunderbird to show its icon in system tray when a new email arrives or when the user minimizes Thunderbird window as mentioned in this article. But there was no option available to show Thunderbird icon in system tray permanently if the software is opened and running in user’s device.

Many users wanted to always show Thunderbird icon in system tray and finally the developer team has added a new option for this functionality. Thunderbird 115.0 and later versions come with a new option to always show system tray icon. The option is not available on Thunderbird Settings page. It’s a hidden secret preference/flag which can be modified using Thunderbird’s advanced configuration editor (about:config).

Related: [Review] What’s New in Thunderbird 115.0 Supernova UI

Following screenshot shows Thunderbird window is not minimized and still its icon is visible in Taskbar system tray:

If you also want to force Thunderbird to always show its icon in Taskbar system tray, following steps will help you:

1. Open Thunderbird and click on the Main Menu (3 horizontal lines) icon present at the right-side of the titlebar. Now select Settings option. You can also open Settings page directly by clicking on the cog wheel icon present at the bottom of the left sidebar. Alternatively, you can press ALT key to temporary show Menu bar and then select “Tools -> Settings” option.

2. It’ll open Thunderbird Options window. Scroll down to bottom and click on the “Config Editor” button given at the bottom of the window.

It’ll open the hidden secret “about:config” page of Thunderbird which is similar to Mozilla Firefox‘s advanced configuration editor page.

3. Now type tray in Search filter box and look for following preference in the window:

4. This preference is set to false by default which means the permanent system tray icon is disabled. To enable the system tray icon, double-click on mail.biff.show_tray_icon_always preference and change its value to true. Alternatively, you can right-click on the preference and select Toggle option.

That’s it. Now Thunderbird will always display its icon in Taskbar notification area.

PS: There are no menu or options available on Thunderbird’s system tray icon. Thunderbird team might add more functionality to system tray icon in future versions.

NOTE: The other preferences mail.biff.show_tray_icon and mail.minimizeToTray available on advanced config editor page can be used to show Thunderbird system try icon when a new email arrives and when you minimize Thunderbird window respectively. Dedicated options to turn on/off both preferences are available on General tab of Thunderbird Settings page as well.

Also Check:

[Tip] Disable Unread Email Message Count Badge on Thunderbird Icon in Windows Taskbar