[Tip] How to Minimize Mozilla Thunderbird to System Tray on Close

Mozilla Thunderbird is one of the most popular and highly customizable desktop email client software available for Windows, Linux and MacOS. The best part of this email client is portability support. You can use it as a portable utility as well and carry it on your USB drives. It supports all popular email service providers and helps users in configuring their email accounts easily and quickly by automatically detecting the email service provider’s server settings.

Thunderbird is developed by Mozilla, the same company which also develops the well known Firefox web browser which is our favorite browser.

Thunderbird also supports RSS feed functionality, so you can also use it as an RSS feed reader.

Apart from so many interesting features, functionality, there is one important and essential feature missing in Thunderbird which is Minimize to system tray when minimizing or closing the program window.

Almost all 3rd party email clients (such as eM Client) come with this feature. You can customize email clients to automatically minimize to system tray (also known as Taskbar notification area) when you click on Minimize button in titlebar. You can also configure email clients to minimize to system tray instead of closing the program when you click on Close button in titlebar.

This feature helps in preventing the email client program from accidental closing. Email clients programs are required to always run in background so that we can receive new emails notifications as soon as the emails arrive in our Inbox. But if we keep the email client software always running in our system, its Taskbar button will always be visible in Taskbar and will occupy/waste space on Taskbar. Minimize to tray feature helps users in removing the email client program button from Taskbar and place its small icon in system tray. Now whenever user needs to open email client software, he can click on the icon and the program will launch. When the user doesn’t need email client program, he can click on Minimize or Close button and it’ll minimize the program to system tray. When the user wants to completely close the program, he can right-click on the email client’s system tray icon and select Exit or Close option from context menu.

Thunderbird lacks this functionality. It doesn’t come with Minimize to system tray feature built-in. It always sits in Taskbar and wastes space on Taskbar.

Fortunately there are extensions/add-ons which can add this missing feature to Thunderbird.

Today in this article, we’ll tell you about such extension which can bring and enable Minimize to system tray functionality in Mozilla Thunderbird. With the help of this extension, you’ll be able to minimize Thunderbird to system tray by clicking on Minimize or Close button in titlebar.

The extension is called “MinimizeToTray Reanimated“. This extension is an update for the old MinimizeToTray Revived extension which is no longer supported.

You just need to install the extension in Thunderbird and it’ll automatically add the missing Minimize to tray feature to Thunderbird.

STEP 1:

First of all download the extension from following link:

Download MinimizeToTray Reanimated Extension for Mozilla Thunderbird

Click on “Download Now” button given on the webpage and it’ll save the .XPI file on your computer.

STEP 2:

Now open Mozilla Thunderbird and select “Add-ons” option from main Hamburger menu given at the top-right corner of the toolbar. Alternatively, you can press ALT key on your keyboard to temporary show Menubar and then select “Tools -> Add-ons” menu option.

It’ll open Add-ons Manager page in Thunderbird.

Now click on cog-wheel (Tools) icon present near search box and select “Install Add-on From File” option.

Select the downloaded .XPI file in browse window.

Thunderbird will show installation window. Click on Install button.

Thunderbird will ask to restart the program to finish extension installation. Click on “Restart Now” button.

Upon restart Thunderbird, the extension will be activated and enabled successfully.

Now try to click on Minimize button present in titlebar and it’ll minimize Thunderbird to system tray instead of Taskbar.

You can double-click on system tray icon to show Thunderbird window again on computer screen.

STEP 3: (OPTIONAL)

You can also customize the extension to minimize Thunderbird to system tray when clicking on Close button as well.

Select “Add-ons -> MinimizeToTray Animated” option from main Hamburger menu given at the top-right corner of the toolbar. Alternatively, you can press ALT key on your keyboard to temporary show Menubar and then select “Tools -> Add-on Options -> MinimizeToTray Animated” menu option.

It’ll open the extension’s Settings or Preferences window.

Now select “Instead of closing and when minimizing” option given under “Minimize to tray” section.

You can also select “Show always” option present under “Tray-Icon” section to always show Thunderbird icon in system tray.

Click on OK button to apply changes.

Now Thunderbird will always minimize to tray when minimizing or closing the program window.

TIP:

Above mentioned extension can be used in newer versions of Thunderbird such as version 60.0 and later. If you are using an older version of Thunderbird, you can try following extensions which support old legacy versions of Thunderbird:

MinimizeToTray Revived

FireTray

If you get “The extension could not be installed because it is not compatible with Thunderbird” error message while trying to install these extensions, following tutorial will help you in fixing the issue:

[Fix] Extension could not be Installed Because It is not Compatible with Thunderbird

Also Check:

4t Tray Minimizer: Free Utility to Minimize Applications to System Tray in Windows