When we use thunderbird, once we close it, it turns off. Or if we minimize it, it goes to the task bar and stays there running.
So if you ever felt that this wonderful email client of yours needs to have the feature that when you close of minimize it, instead of going to the task bar, it go to the system tray and stay there, and keep on running and receiving any emails that you get on your configured email addresses without having it to take space of your task bar, there is a simple solution for that!
How to Minimize Thunderbird to system tray instead of taskbar on minimize / exit
You just need to install a add-on available for free. The add on is called MinimizeToTray and here is the tutorial on how to install and use it easily on your thunder bird mail client to add features of minimize to system tray on exit to it.
1. Download the add-on MinimizeToTray:
First of all we need to download the add-on MinimizeToTray to the computer. Click here to goto the download page for the add-on.Click on the Download Now button on the page and it will ask you to save the addon on your computer.
2. Install add-on on Mozilla Thunderbird:
Once the addon is downloaded successfully on your computer, you need to install it in Mozilla Thunderbird now. To do that, launch the thunderbird mail client and goto:
Tools > Addons
On the popup window, bottom left, click Install and browse the directory where the addon was downloaded and select the downloaded xpi file, and click Open.
This will install the addon and will ask you to restart your mozilla thunderbird.
3. Restart Mozilla Thunderbird:
Once the add-on is installed successfully, we need to restart the thunderbird email client in order for the MinimizeToTray add-on installation to complete and we can use the features of minimizing the thunderbird to system try on exit.
4. Setting up the MinimizeToTray Add-on:
Once the add-on is installed successfully, click on the Options.It will give you options to select:
- Always minimize to the tray instead of to the taskbar
- Minimize to the tray on close
- Require a double click to restore from the tray
Select the options that you want to setup and click ok! and voila!
If you select the options as shown in the above image, then it will work normally as it does, except for that when you close the Mozilla thunderbird email client, instead of exiting, it will minimize to the system tray, and will still be checking for your emails and working.