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

If you use Mozilla Thunderbird email client software to access your email accounts and send/receive emails, this article will help you in disabling or removing the unread message count icon on Thunderbird button in Windows Taskbar.

When you receive a new email message in your email account, Thunderbird automatically displays a new badge on its Taskbar button showing the count of total unread email messages.

Following screenshot shows the unread email message counter feature live in action in Thunderbird program:

This feature allows Thunderbird to let the user know that there are some new email messages available to read or reply.

Actually the unread message badge feature is a part of Windows operating system and Thunderbird utilizes this functionality to show new email messages counter on its Taskbar icon.

If you are using Windows 10 operating system, you can turn off this feature system-wide by modifying Taskbar properties.

Following tutorial will help you in disabling Taskbar badge notifications feature in Windows 10:

[Windows 10 Tip] Disable Number of Badge Notifications on Taskbar Buttons

Once you disable this feature, Thunderbird and other software programs will stop showing message badge icons on their Taskbar buttons.

But if you don’t want to turn off the badge feature system wide but want to disable it in Thunderbird only, this article will assist you.

In past, Thunderbird didn’t allow users to disable or remove unread email message counter on its Taskbar button but Mozilla team implemented a new hidden secret preference/flag to get rid of this functionality in newer versions of Thunderbird (version 91.0.2 and later).

So now you can disable the unread message counter icon by modifying a secret preference/flag in Thunderbird.

If you also want to disable the unread email message count badge on Thunderbird button in Windows Taskbar, following steps will help you:

1. Open Thunderbird and click on the Main Menu (3 horizontal lines) icon present at the extreme right corner of the toolbar. Now click on Preferences menu.

Alternatively, you can press ALT key to temporary show Menubar and then select “Tools -> Preferences” menu.

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 advance configuration editor page.

Related: [Tip] How to Access “About:Config” Page in Mozilla Thunderbird

3. Now type show_badge in Search filter box and it’ll show following preference in the window:

4. This preference is set to true by default i.e. enabled. To disable the feature, double-click on mail.biff.show_badge preference and change its value to false. Alternatively, you can right-click on the preference and select Toggle option.

That’s it. Now Thunderbird will no longer display new email message count badge on its Taskbar button.

PS: Gmail users can also enable similar unread email message count icon in browser’s tab bar with the help of following tutorial:

[Tip] Enable Unread Email Message Count Icon in Gmail

Also Check:

[Tip] Use Minimize to System Tray Feature in Mozilla Thunderbird